Today was another day out with the botanists. We drove out to an area called Second Creek and I was expecting to see a river/ creek. As we started walking further off the road our feet started sinking into some muddy water. This is where we started to see a large variety of little flowers start to appear around us. We were told by the botanists that this was the location where they found a small carnivorous plant called Utricularia singeriana. It was recorded on Groote Eylandt for the first time a few days ago. It only grows in the NT but on the mainland it is threatened due to disturbance of introduced species like feral pigs. We were told that Groote is the only place where it is safe from these threats.

We used the GPS mark of where it was located and were keen to see if it was found in any other areas around in the same habitat or if it was just in the one little patch the botanists had located previously. Together we found approximately another 20 samples of the species in the area. As soon as we walked twenty meters away in all directions we weren't able to find any at all.

We crossed the deeper part of the marsh land to get to the other side to see what we could find. We didn't find anymore Utricularia but we did find several more drosera species that we collected to be catalogued at the NT Herborium. It was interesting to learn that they use their bladders in their roots to trap insects / bugs. Most the species we found were all very small, as you could imagine that all the larger more obvious plants have been recorded previously but if you get on your hands and knees to look at the species below the grass you can find something far less common.