The Bengal Tiger, in Flower

Hello all! I hope everyone is having a good week thus far!

Lots of flowering action beginning – a few flowers, but more buds will be opening soon.  It’s going to be a busy soon with a flurry of pollination activity.  While we’re on the subject of flowers and such, I wanted to share this one photo I snapped this weekend of Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger” in flower.  I received this plant as a small division a few years ago, and it’s finally flowering for me!

[Sarracenia catesbaei, “Bengal Tiger” flower, March 2011]

Ah, the gentle and subtle hue of this flower… so elegant and debonair.  Don’t let it fool you though; the name “Bengal Tiger” was coined by fellow grower, Brooks Garcia, not for the flower but rather for the intense, vivid, and almost violent looking veined pattern strewn across the pitchers.

I don’t have a recent photo on hand at the moment; but here’s one that I was able to pull up from April, 2009.  Here it’s exhibiting it’s flaring hood with the bold veins running all throughout.  I’ll be sure to get a photo this year as soon as it produces some nice pitchers.

[Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger”]

A brief history about this plant:  I received this division from fellow Sarracenia addict, Brooks Garcia. This plant was actually originated from a batch of seedlings from fellow friend and grower, Dominic Diaz, who acquired the batch of seedlings from a UC Davis conservatory sale. The pot was labeled “S. purpurea venosa burkii x flava oranata”, and it is believed that the seeds were donated to the conservatory. There were about 50 seedlings crammed into a small four inch pot, and Dominic disbursed them in several trades. (Ain’t genetics awesome? You never know what you’ll get outta a batch o’ seedlings…) Most of the plants from that pot share the same characteristic catesbaei form, with shades of copper, red, and burgundy. The hood is particularly large due to the purpurea subspecies involved in this cross.

Anyway, after some time, a division of one of those seedlings from way back when found its way to me and this is what you see before you here in these photos.  Now that it’s flowering, I hope to create some interesting hybrids that also exhibit a similar beautiful veined pattern with that flaring hood.  And perhaps a similar story will unfold as I disburse seeds and seedlings to others in the future as well!