The Green Swamp Preserve
BY COLLEEN THOMPSON
29
WBM
N AD ON THE BACK PAGE of my
comic collection when I was a
kid captivated my attention. For
$1 you could buy a meat-eating
plant that promised it would
“devour insects 20 times its size!”
I was all in and desperately
wanted one of these “coolest creatures on the planet.”
The Venus flytrap, as it turned out, had made its way to
the African continent where I lived in Johannesburg —
8,158 miles away from its natural habitat — and I got my
wish one birthday morning.
I didn’t question where it came from. I liked the image
I had conjured in my imagination: it had come from
another planet altogether.
Little did I know in my grown-up life I would be wak-ing
up at 5 a.m. early one Saturday in Wilmington, North
Carolina, heading out to the Green Swamp Preserve, an
hour’s drive away, and feeling just a little bit like that kid
again in search of Venus flytraps. Only this time they
would be in their wild, natural environment.
I convinced my 10-year-old son and husband it would
be worth the very early rise before the sun became too
hot. Lured with the promise of road-trip snacks, a swamp,
and carnivorous bug-eating plants, we hit the road.
Brunswick County’s Green Swamp Preserve encompasses
about 17,000 acres of flora and fauna, including the legend-ary
Venus flytrap.
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