Tag Archives: Golden Red Jubilee

Minor … Hybrid?

Minor var. okefenokeensis?

Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x 'Golden Red Jubilee'

I grew the above plant from a seed batch that Brooks Garcia did in either 2008 or 2009. He crossed S. minor var. okefenokeensis with S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’ and most of the plants look similar to the above photo. Only a couple from the batch look like the photo to the left (photo from 2011, a sibling plant) in where you can see just a tad bit more of the influence of S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’, yet it’s S. minor that dominates the look. The plant above looks to be mostly minor, which leads me to assume that most of the plants could be selfed. I also have to mention that the pitchers in the photo above formed late-late-late fall. (Yes… some plants are confused from all this moving and I fear it could be another year before things settle back down to a more normal routine.) Form and color have held well since then. I’m really looking forward to seeing it flower and at that time will know better if any of the S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’ genes made their way into this mix. S. minor flowers are yellow, while S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’ flowers are a dark red/maroon. I am not sure if the above plant will flower this year, but if not – I hope it will next year. Just another example of the pretty awesome surprises you find when growing plants out from seed. I also like the windows that appear on the side and all the way to the front of the pitcher. It could be a useful characteristic in more breeding projects in the future. Anyway, I’ll photograph and update more of the siblings when a new flush of pitchers come up this year.

Fire and Brimstone

Sarracenia 'Golden Red Jubilee' x purpurea ssp. purpureaWhile cleaning out the and organizing plants the other day, I stumbled upon a pot of Sarracenia ‘Golden-Red Jubilee‘ x purpurea ssp. purpurea. Always nice to find surprises like this! I did this cross back (I think) in 2009. Possibly 2008. Eh, gotta check. From what I recall, many of the seedlings were deeply and richly colored. (Example: see 5th photo in this post from June of last year.) Even some of the green ones exhibited a nice “chunky” veiny trait to them. In the photo to the left, you can see the older foliage just limp and blah all over the pot looking messy, however there are 3 recent pitchers that really stood out that stem from 2 of the seedlings in the batch. One plant decided to don a mischievous yet fiery pink. The other is cloaked in a sulfur and brimstone yellow backdrop for the web of dark veins. Seeing this color combination together made me think of fire and brimstone. Both young siblings, though different in color, display a similar and elegantly sinister facade.

Sarracenia 'Golden Red Jubilee' x purpurea ssp. purpureaSarracenia ‘Golden-Red Jubilee’ x purpurea ssp. purpurea

Sarracenia 'Golden Red Jubilee' x purpurea ssp. purpurea
Sarracenia ‘Golden-Red Jubilee’ x purpurea ssp. purpurea

And So It Begins… Again.

2012 has been off to an exciting start.  With the majority of the transition behind me, I’ve had time to focus on the next big task: cleaning and re-organizing. Garden moves are not as easy as I would like them to be, and I anticipate a full season before I can really settle in and get things organized at the new place.

The greenhouse provides it’s own set of advantages as well as challenges that I hope to negotiate and document here.  Honestly, I really do prefer growing Sarracenia outdoors; however – I’m thankful that at least the garden has a space.

Here’s a few photos from the past few days…


Overgrown seedling tray.  Those seedlings are about a year old, and need to be trimmed, cleaned, then re-potted…


A tub of old pitchers.  The blade is coming to slice em down soon…


Lots of trimming and re-potting ahead…  and no, I really still can’t find stuff I want to find…

One of those nasty pots full of overgrown seedlings… This cross is a Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x catebaei – Sumatra, FL


Same pot as above – Sarracenia (leucophylla x oreophila) x catebaei – Sumatra, FL post cut.   After trimming all these pots, the next step is thinning/shifting the seedlings out to let them grow out for evaluation.


Filllin’ the can up with dead pitchers full of bug guts… delicious.

And if you’re wondering why I haven’t used the katana blade – well, because of the move, I’m having trouble locating it at the moment. But not to worry, it will be in effect once found!


Looking cleaner! I managed to get through only a couple of benches thus far. And that’s only trimming.  I still have quite a few more benches to finish with trimming — then it’s re-potting time! YEAH!


Another angle.  Notice I left some of the phyllodia (those are the flat non-carnivorous leaves that aid the plant in photosynthesis), as well as a couple of pitchers that were still pretty good looking.

Speaking of pitchers… check out a few of these nifty pitchers that are still holding pretty well late in the season!


Recent addition – a couple of *bizarre beasts*, but yet kind of fun and interesting… this is Sarracenia “Smurf”!  From what I was told, it  originated as a tissue culture mutant of S. purpurea ssp. venosa, and later found at Carniflora.  Special thanks to Kevin for these awkwardly insane and strangely weird beasts!  (Uh, yeah… I do have a thing for weird pitcher shapes too…)


Sarracenia purpurea “Smurf”


Sarracenia purpurea “Smurf” — I guess there’s something about those weird pointy hood hook things that I kinda like!


As I was cleaning and trimming – I found some more pots of my cross of S. ‘Golden Red Jubilee’ x purpurea ssp. purpurea.  These were growing in partially shaded conditions. Plants that I’ve distributed to others in the past year have shown some nice veins when they were able to be grown out in full blazing sun. Now that I have more space, I can’t wait to see what these things will do!


Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster” – This is a collaboration cross between an idea that sprang up during a conversation between Jerry Addington and I.  The mother plant supplied by Mike Wang, and pollen from the S. “Green Monster” I had.  What you see is step 1 in an antho free project we have going on… good times!


Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Green Monster”

Rebuilding
Sarracenia courtii x ‘Adrian Slack’ – a select clone from a cross I did a couple years ago – late season pitcher.

There’s still a lot of work left to do. It’s unending, but it’s “work” that I find fun.  As I remove the dead foliage, there are faint glimmers of hope that appear.  Sometimes I’ll see the beginnings of a new pitcher, or perhaps a slight bulge at the growpoint on certain plants indicating that flowers are just around the corner…

A Minor Detail

One of the things love about Sarracenia minors and their hybrids is that they have those very cool windows on the pitcher.  It’s a luring/trapping mechanism that the plant has that I mentioned about in an earlier come to the light post.  So a couple days ago, I noticed one of the plants with some cool thick windows in the back of its pitcher head.  It’s seed grown. The seeds came over as Sarracenia minor var. okefenokeensis x “Golden Red Jubilee” — as they grew, a lot of the seed looked like the pod parent plant, and a couple plants have characteristics of both parents.  Anyway, for this particular plant it would almost seem that  it may of been self pollinated seedling?  Eh… But who knows really. That’s just a minor detail.  When it will bloom, it may give us a better indication.  Anywhoo, for now, I just am enjoying the “Minor” detail on the back of this pitcher…

A minor detail[Some pretty cool windows on the back of this one..]