Yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava) is found from southern Alabama, through Florida and Georgia, to the coastal plains of southern Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It grows in wet savannas and pine flatwoods, seepage slopes, and bogs.
I. Appearance and Characteristics
Sarracenia flava, the yellow pitcherplant, is a carnivorous plant in the family Sarraceniaceae. Like all the Sarraceniaceae, it is native to the New World. Its range extends from southern Alabama, through Florida and Georgia, to the coastal plains of southern Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Populations also exist in the Piedmont, Mendocino County, California and mountains of North Carolina.
Like other members of the genus Sarracenia, the yellow pitcher plant traps insects using a rolled leaf, which in this species is a vibrant yellow in color, and up to over a meter (3 ft) in height (although 50 cm, 20″ is more typical). The uppermost part of the leaf is flared into a lid (the operculum), which prevents excess rain from entering the pitcher and diluting the digestive secretions within.
The upper regions of the pitcher are covered in short, stiff, downwards-pointing hairs, which serve to guide insects alighting on the upper portions of the leaf towards the opening of the pitcher tube. The upper regions are also brightly patterned with flower-like anthocyanin markings, particularly in the varieties S. flava var. rugelii and S. flava var. ornata: these markings also serve to attract insect prey.
The opening of the pitcher tube is retroflexed into a ‘nectar roll’ or peristome, whose surface is studded with nectar-secreting glands. The nectar contains not only sugars, but also the alkaloid coniine (a toxin also found in hemlock), which probably intoxicates the prey. Prey entering the tube find that their footing is made extremely uncertain by the smooth, waxy secretions found on the surfaces of the upper portion of the tube.
Insects losing their footing on this surface plummet to the bottom of the tube, where a combination of digestive fluid, wetting agents and inward-pointing hairs prevent their escape. Some large insects (such as wasps) have been reported to escape from the pitchers on occasion, by chewing their way out through the wall of the tube.
In spring, the plant produces large flowers with 5-fold symmetry. The yellow petals are long and strap-like, and dangle over the umbrella-like style of the flower, which is held upside down at the end of a 50 cm, 20″ long scape. The stigma of the flower are found at the tips of the ‘spokes’ of this umbrella. Pollinating insects generally enter the flower from above, forcing their way into the cavity between the petals and umbrella, and depositing any pollen they are carrying on the stigmata as they enter. The pollinators generally exit the flower, having been dusted with the plant’s own pollen, by lifting a petal. This one-way system helps to ensure cross pollination.
In late summer and autumn, the plant stops producing carnivorous leaves, and instead produces flat, non-carnivorous phyllodia. This is probably an adaptation to low light levels and insect scarcity during the winter months, and shows clearly the cost of carnivory.
The yellow pitcher plant is easy to cultivate, and is one of the most popular carnivorous plants in horticulture. The yellow pitcher plant readily hybridises with other members of the genus Sarracenia: the hybrids S. x catesbaei (S. flava × S. purpurea) and S. moorei (S. flava × S. leucophylla) are found in the wild, and are also popular amongst collectors.
II. How to Grow and Care
Light and temperature
Yellow pitcher plants can grow in full sun. The plant needs the temperature of between 5 and 15 ° C in winter and 20 to 40 ° C in summer. In summer, the plant can be grown outdoors without problems. But in winter it has to avoid frost. We can keep the plant at higher temperatures, inside a house for example, but we will then take the risk of reducing its life. It can be installed in outdoor peat bogs because it can withstand temperatures of -12 ° C.
In winter, an atmosphere that is too dry and too hot can encourage an invasion of mealybugs. The accumulation of insects in the pitchers often leads to leaf mold in winter. You need to cut the affected leaves to prevent spread to the entire plant. To avoid this risk many people cut all leaves at the beginning of winter.
Watering
Use mineral-free water or water low in minerals. Keep the soil moist all year long, but plant crowns should not sit for prolonged periods in water. You can use a saucer under the pot, and reduce and remove it in winter. Plants need full sun in the growing season and cold temperatures in winter dormancy.
Soil
Sarracenia flava is best grown in the consistently moist soils of a bog garden. Plants may also be grown in pots/containers (plastic best) placed outside on a sunny deck or patio area. Container soils can be 70% blonde peat + 20% sand + 10% vermiculite. Potting soil and/or fertilizer may kill the plant. Containers should be placed in a tray of water that keeps the soil constantly moist Due to the size of the plant use a pot of 13 cm minimum. A pot too small will prevent it from developing normally. Repotting will take place in spring until early summer.
Fertilizing
Do not fertilize the plants. Kept outside, the plant will catch more than enough food for themselves. If you keep your plants indoors, you can feed them with dried insects every few weeks.
Propagation
If in nature the production of seeds is important, it is not the same in culture. Pollination occurs only rarely, probably due to lack of pollinating insects. It can be tempted naturally by taking the pollen of a flower with a brush and placing it on the stigma of another flower. If all goes well, we will get about a hundred seeds in late summer. To germinate these will need to undergo stratification . It will be necessary to sow them from the beginning of March, in a container containing a mixture of peat and sand packed and well humidified. The seeds will just be covered with a thin layer of sifted peat. The whole will be placed in the refrigerator for two to three weeks to undergo cooling.
After this stratification, the seedbed will be returned to normal temperature at about 20 °C. The germination is long enough it will take sometimes more than two months. When the plants are strong enough to be handled they can be replanted in small pots with the same compost as the adult plants. This mode of reproduction would be ideal if the germination was not so capricious. Moreover, in the first years, the growth of Sarracenia flava is very slow.
Division is also possible for the Yellow pitcher plant. Once a plant is well established it produces at its foot releases that we can separate in the spring. We will detach the rejection with a tool very sharp and clean, it will be necessary to dig up the plant slightly. The recovery will be no problem if the rejection has good roots. This operation can be done during a repotting of the plant.
