The Pitcher Plant Project

Sarracenia (leucophylla x purpurea heterophylla) 
x (rubra ssp. jonseii AF x minor var. okefenokeensis)
Cross by Jerry Addington

I recently had a bright find. As I was doing some clean up of some young plants recently, I came across something interesting hiding in the fray of last year’s burnt out foliage. The cross is Sarracenia (leucophylla x purpurea heterophylla) x (rubra ssp. jonseii AF x minor var. okefenokeensis) by Jerry Addington. There are 2 young plants in there.

As you probably already know, last year was not kind to the plants at all, and I didn’t get to see any of the real characteristics of the plants come about, so I couldn’t really tell what kind of things I had going on with the younger plants. I’m constantly finding surprises here and there… and I wonder what other things I’ll find as I still go through and trim the dead pitchers away.

The plant on the left still has one sort of decent yet fading pitcher left over from last year. The plant on the right has a new pitcher coming up that has a unique amount of pale cream/white that covers most of the pitcher. Interestingly enough, both parent plants have anthocyanin free recessive genes. I clipped the older pitcher that was all crispy and burnt, but the other burnt out pitcher on this pale plant from last year has a pitcher that looks like it stayed pale with a flush of red. I’m guessing that it will eventually get that red flush to the pitcher. For sure it’s something that I’ll be keeping a watch on.