Sarracenia mitchelliana, Anthocyanin Free Clone
If you don’t know me by know, I really am into anthocyanin free plants. Anthocyanin free (or “AF” for shorthand) plants are basically kind of like, “albino” plants (just for a lack of better illustration), and they are devoid of anthocyanin which is the pigment that causes the coloration/red in the plants. This particular AF mitch is “okay” — it is not quite what I’d have in mind in terms of a show-stopper. It’s just… nice. I do see potential in this though. First – It’s already anthocyanin free (YAY!), saving me some time in the AF hybridizing fiasco.
Oh and before continuing with reading below, a warning that I’m going to be speaking quasi Sarracenia-ese. For readers that aren’t too familiar with Sarracenia, it would probably behoove you to familiarize yourself with some of the species that offer up endless combinations for creative hybridization before proceeding. Like here or here or cornfuse yerself here and perhaps here … (Aye, it may help decipher some of me pshychobabble here on mah’ blog, mateys! ARGHHHH!!!)
Sarracenia mitchelliana, Anthocyanin Free Clone
Sometimes with hybridizing, if you have a concept you’d like to see come to fruition, you just gotta use what you have while you have it available. Now don’t get me wrong, it would be pretty cool to create my own special select AF mitch (YES! I am workin’ on it), but for time’s sake and with the ideas I have — I might as well use what I got. Ideally I’d like to see a mitch with say, a more flared/ruffled hood, or more white/contrast. But oh well, I don’t have it (YET!) and I’m not going to wait another 5 years or so to create what I want at this time, so… for now I will just use what I got! I’ll get to that other plant-thing later. In this case, I’m working with the shape of this plant as a “base” to build on, and also doing a gamble hoping that I can cause more the the S. leucophylla (white) to express itself more so in the subsequent cross. I kinda like that upward point to the hood as well.
Anyway, I’m posting this for now just as an online record to see what kind of hybrids can come forth from this. I’ve used this AF mitch as a pollen parent with some crosses, and last season, I used it as a pod parent with pollen from S. “Green Monster”. (Here’s a photo from 2009 of one of my plants…)
Sarracenia “Green Monster”
For those of you not familiar with it, S. “Green Monster” is an anthocyanin free mutant of S. excellens, (parents of S. leucophylla and S. minor). The plant, from my understanding, was created by Bill Scholl. On the horizon for me are my own crosses to create other AF S. exellens-ses. 🙂 I am hoping that either the influence of the S. minor, will express itself in the progeny with those neat cute lil’ white dot thingies (called areolas). Also I’d really LOVE to see S. leucophylla express itself strongly in the offspring. I mean, technically I’m going to end up with a plant that’s half leucophylla: purp/leuco and minor/leuco. (And why the heck does that remind me of an algebraic equation?) … So anyways, what the heck do I know?
One of the plants I have that has that combination of parentage turned out like this, and perhaps… one of the seedlings from the AF mitch/excellens cross I just did from this batch will turn out to be an AF version of the below — with the mitch shape and leuco color quite prominent:
Sarracenia mitchelliana x excellens
My imagination spurs me on to also imagine a plant with (hopefully) white dots about the upper portion of the pitcher. Perhaps some plants will have a hood that points up like the mother, or maybe slightly hangs over the mouth due to the S. excellens father influence? Eh, But who really knows?! It was a cool cross to make at the time. Part of what I find fascinating with this hybridizing thing is exactly that – the beautiful unknown. So, for the online record, there’s my thoughts/ideas with this cross. Let’s see what the next few years bring about!
Any ideas out there of what you think this S. mitchelliana AF x “Green Monster” cross may eventually look like?
Sarracenia mitchelliana, Anthocyanin Free Clone
Sarracenia alata – Anthocyanin Free Clone
Sarracenia leucophylla – Anthocyanin Free
Sarracenia rubra wherryi “Chatom Giant”
Sarracenia ‘Abandoned Hope’
Sarracenia ‘Snorkle’
Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ “Prince of Darkness”
