The Gates of Hell and Abandoned Hope

Yo, you still there? I’m still here.  Chances are that if you are reading this, you’re still here too! Rad!!!

For those of you who haven’t heard,  May 21, 2011 – was supposed to be “Judgement Day.”  I won’t go into detail here on that subject. There’s plenty of info and opinion out there on the web. If you haven’t heard about it yet, feel free to look it up.

I really hope y’all had a good day anyway – regardless of what happened… or in this case, what didn’t happen.   For me, it was quite a very nice day actually. Good weather, spent time with the fam, got some gardening in, got an oil change, worked around the house a bit, and to  top it all off, the San Francisco Giants won! Tim Lincecum tossed a FREAKKKKKIN amazing complete shut out game! (AAANDDD…. most of you reading this probably don’t even care about that, but I just had to get that in there. The highlight of my day… GO GIANTS!)

Uh, ok… so back to Sarracenia…

I was inspired to share these two plants with you that I photographed the morning of this “Judgement Day.” And they pass judgement on their meals very nicely, yummm-ooo!

First up: Sarracenia “Gates of Hell”.  This cross was created by Brooks Garcia. The parentage – select clones of S. mitchelliana x flava var. ornata. I love the veins of this plant.  It literally was the only “Hell” that I’ve seen today. Hella nice plant! 😉

[Sarracenia “Gates of Hell”]

And looking at the pitcher, you can almost see the flames jumping out of the fiery pit about  to drag it’s meal into that eternal digestive damnation. *Yummy!*

[Sarracenia “Gates of Hell”]

The next plant is another one that I found fitting to be included in the Doomsday theme: Sarracenia “Abandoned Hope”. This is a cross that Peter D’Amato created in 1989 by crossing S. purpurea subsp. venosa var. burkii with S. flava var. flava.  More information on this plant can be found at the International Carnivorous Plant Society.  According to Peter, The name was coined in 1994 and was taken from the sign at the entrance to Hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.”

[Sarracenia ‘Abandoned Hope’]

So bugs, be good and watch out, else your fate will end up in the depths of the Sarracenia abyss!