By Ed Simmons, Jr. cpreporter@verizon.net

The rumbling tour bus rolled into Caroline last Thursday afternoon. On it were 45 members of the International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society. Many were American, from Pennsylvania to Texas. Others were from Canada. Another from Ireland. And two were from Korea.

They had come to Caroline to visit Meadowview Biological Research Station where Director Phil Sheridan grows plants that eat insects, most specifically the native Virginia pitcher plants that once thrived here before the English colonists came.

Sheridan was waiting by the road to flag the bus down because it's not hard to miss the research station located five miles north of Bowling Green on Route 2 in Woodford. With him were two interns, Rebecca Elliot from British Columbia and Nick Hayword from Philadelphia.

The International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society is a non-profit that advances all aspects of water gardens, furthering education, research, and conservation. Their "2008 Symposium – Virginia, U.S.A." was being hosted at Louis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond and featured visits to water gardens throughout the state. Arriving around 2:00 p.m., the 45 visitors looked like you'd expect botanists to look, wearing floppy-brimmed hats, hiking shoes and slung with long-lens cameras. Sheridan gathered them in the shade and explained his operation where he grows pitcher plants in artificial, pond-fed pools.

Many of their questions had to do with water quality. Sheridan told them we have excellent water here in Caroline for pitcher plants, clean and free of minerals. They wanted to know how they could get comparable water.

They were curious too about how the pitcher plant catches bugs. With an enticing nectar-rimmed tube, or "pitcher," the bugs are lured in, then can't get out and are digested.

Their curiosity also centered on Caroline history – about the Washington-Rochambeau Route running past the station.

The birds too caught their fancy. Meadowview is a stop on the Birding Trail.

But mostly, said Sheridan, they wanted to wander around and take pictures.

In other Meadowview news, Sheridan said he'll be assisting a Caroline landowner in the Carmel Church area with re-introducing pitcher plants to his property in late July. For more information about Meadowview, see www.pitcherplant.org.