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.