Last updated Dec. 18, 2004

Sweet Pitcherplants

The sweet fragrance of their tall, nodding maroon flowers gives these sweet pitcherplants their name.

Sweet pitcherplants are more green in hue early in the season. They take on their celebrated coppery purple appearance as they mature.

Sarracenia rubra flowers bloom in April and May.

Their flowers mature to produce colorful, five-segmented fruit like the one seen in the photograph.

Most Sarracenia rubra leaves are hollow, elongated and tubular. Those forming the insect-catching pitchers.

Sweet nectar secreted by glands at each tube's opening attracts sugar-feeding insects. Most are ants, but they may also catch flies, wasps, bees, moths and other creatures.

Immediately below the mouth, there is a is slippery smooth surface.

As the insects feed, some slip on the slippery rim of the pitcher fall into the tube.

Below the smooth area are stiff, downward pointing hairs which direct prey downward and hamper escape.

Pitcherplants live in nutrient-poor soils. Scientists have found that Pitcherplants do get scarce nitrogen and other nutrients from digestion. But as Nature Conservancy scientist Barry Rice said recently of meat-eating plants in general, "we don't truly know why they need the nutrients associated with insect meat."

Those that do not escape fall into the digestive mixture at the bottom. That digestive mixture usually consists of water and digestive enzymes, bacteria, algae, protozoa and other living creatures.

The pitchers are usually four to eight inches tall. They are greenish when young and turn more red with coppery veins as they mature.

The pitcher hoods are ovate and up to one and one-half inches across. At maturity, the hoods are marbled and reddish brown or purple.

More ordinary leaves that are flat and not pitcher-like often develop late in the season.

Often found near venus fly traps, sweet Pitcherplants grow in low pinelands, in bogs, on stream banks and in wet savannas.

Botanists have identified five subspecies of Sarracenia rubra. They are:

• Alabama pitcherplant (Sarracenia rubra ssp. alabamensis) found only in Alabama
• Gulf pitcherplant (Sarracenia rubra Walt. ssp. gulfensis) found in Florida
• Wherry Jones' pitcherplant (Sarracenia rubra Walt. ssp. Jones), also called the mountain sweet pitcherplant, is found in North Carolina and South Carolina. It s on the federal endangered species list.
• Sweet pitcherplant (Sarracenia rubra Walt. ssp. rubra) found in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia
• Wherry's pitcherplant (Sarracenia rubra Walt. ssp. wherryi) found in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi

Taxonomic Classification

• Superdivision: Spermatophyta (seed plants)
• Division: Magnoliophyta (flowering plants)
• Class: Magnoliopsida (primitive flowering plants)
• Subclass: Dilleniidae
• Order: Nepenthales
• Family: Sarraceniaceae (pitcher-plant family)
• Genus: Sarracenia L. (pitcherplant)
• Species: Sarracenia rubra Walt. (sweet pitcherplant)

References

Article on Nature Conservancy scientist Barry Rice and his work with carnivorous plants.

The North Carolina Native Plant Society's Rare Plant Initiative

South Carolina's rare, threatened and endangered species inventory

Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants Sarracenia list

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service species account for the mountain sweet pitcherplant

Summary of research on pitcherplants' Attraction and Absorption of Insect Prey

Southeastern Rare Plant Information Network Sarracenia rubra page