Get to the Irving Nature Park. Follow the roadway and turn left into the parking lot at [N 45°12.315’ W 65°08.231’]. Near the covered picnic table is a footpath. Follow the path across the road. Go left on the Heron Trail. Walk about 20-25 paces and look for a dead, mossy birch tree on your left next to the trail.
You are looking for Round-leaved Sundews (see pic1). They are carnivorous plants. Look for small, glistening clusters of reddish leaves. Each leaf is very small (6-10 mm) and is covered with bright, red, hair-like glands. Each gland has a sticky secretion at the tip which looks like a drop of dew. When an insect lands or crawls on a leaf it becomes trapped by the sticky liquid. The glands then bend into the centre of the leaf where enzymes digest the unfortunate bug. In the summer a small cluster of white or pink flowers can be found on a single stalk (5-15 cm high).
Near the base of the dead, mossy birch tree are the sundews. At this location the sundews are very small. To find larger plants continue walking along the Heron Trail for another 270 meters. Cross the planks. On the left beside an uprooted spruce tree is another mossy birch tree; this one’s living. At the base of it, among the moss, are some more meat eaters. Look closely because they blend in with the moss.
Sundews grow in the park where the soil is moist or damp. We’ve seen them beside the Frog Trail in the bog. Now that you know what they look like you may notice them more often.
The cache is hidden off trail. The cache is a small Rubbermaid container covered with camo tape. GPSr WAAS accuracy was 3.6m when the cache was stashed.
Original contents of the cache:
• Logbook (with pen & pencil)
• Travel bug Mustang Snoopy
• LCD sport watch
• Bull’s eye surface level
• Bugs Bunny safety flasher
• Stick-on convex mirror
• FM auto-scan radio (with earphones)
• Hand held “Tetris” game
• Bike mirror
• 2 pack of Crayola playdough
• Shrek2 fridge magnet
There is at least one more species of sundew native to our area. We’ve found Drosera intermedia, a.k.a. Spoon-leaved or Narrow-leaved Sundews, (see pic2) growing along the shores of the Lepreau River.