Hey, Sarracenia, I like your style

I learned how Sarracenia pollinate this week!  Some of my pitcher plants are flowering, and I text Jevon, one of my students who is keen on carnivorous plants, to help me understand what to do since I wanted to make some crosses in my collection.  He told me that the cap that shields the pollen is actually a modified style and has stigmas on the tips.  Bees enter the flower through entrances on the style platform where pollen drops, and before they leave they would brush against one of the five stigma, hopefully carrying pollen from a previous individual.  Boom, cross pollination occurs.  It’s a brilliant approach to help prevent self pollination.  I think the stigmas curled up and away from the pollen-loaded stamen helps even more.  

The appendage I’m grasping is part of the style on this Sarracenia alata. The white spot near my thumb is the stigma where I’ve just placed some pollen from Sarracenia × areolata. There are five stigmas, and I applied pollen to all five in hopes of getting seed set.

I was blown away.  In all this I realized I had never seen a pitcher plant in flower before with the draped petals, and thus never really had a chance to process the floral mechanisms.  It’s always nice as a professor when the student becomes the teacher.  

Potting Up Sarracenia

I’m hooked on pitcher plants, especially our temperate native Sarracenia. I chuckle thinking about it because a year ago I had none, and now I have twelve. I know… I got it bad. But, these funky organisms are just so fascinating and beautiful. It’s partly because last year I saw the incredible populations in east Texas that really got me itching to grow some.

I’m counting six of them just showed up at my doorstep as part of that dozen. In case you’re curious, I just received in the mail…

• Sarracenia ‘Daina's Delight’

• Sarracenia flava ‘Black Ascot’

• Sarracenia leucophylla ‘B2007108 Georgia’

• Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Hurricane Creek’

• Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’

• Sarracenia ‘Yellow Jacket’ (which I’m wondering if it’s ‘Carolina Yellow Jacket’)

Some came rooted in small pots but others came as rhizomes. I wanted to bump up all of them into gallon containers so that they’ll fit nicely into my bog troughs. I made a 1:1 mixture of sand and peat moss by dumping the components back and forth between two Tubtrugs. The peat moss has a pH of around 3.5, which is ideal for Sarracenia. The sand provides porosity and helps the pot stand up. I found that two of those gray five quart buckets each filled with peat moss and sand (four total) is enough substrate for six gallon pots.

Sand and peat moss ready for mixing.

A gallon pot filled with the sand and peat moss blend.

Next, I unwrapped the rhizomes or removed plants from pots. Word of advice! Be careful if there are flowers on them! I broke two off. I know… :-(

A Sarracenia rhizome ready to be planted.

I like to make a hole for where the roots go and then fill in with substrate around the plant. You just want to make sure that the rhizome sits barely on top of the soilless media with the buds poking out.

Voila! Sarracenia ‘Hurricane Creek’ planted and ready to grow.

The next step after planting is I hydrate the pot by placing it in a trough and watering it in with water from the hose. I prefer to use captured rain water; however, our water is pretty pure, and the hose will suffice. If your water quality has too many nutrients or carbonates in it, that can be problematic by making the soil too rich or too alkaline for the plants. After watering them in, you may find that the substrate has settled. Just top off the pot with more media if needed while slightly lifting the rhizome so that it is level with the substrate.

As a nice garnish I place some green Sphagnum moss on top of each pot so that it will grow and act as a living mulch on the surface. I then drop a mosquito dunk into the water to prevent mosquito larvae from living in the water. With that last step, I hope to have these six live and thrive to be enjoyed for many seasons to come!

My Sarracenia collection sits in tubs so that they will hold water and keep the roots consistently wet.