Albany Pitcher Plant

Cephalotus follicularis, the Albany pitcher plant, is a small evergreen carnivorous herb that grows only in peaty swamps and seeps in the far southwest of Western Australia. Its squat, lidded pitchers, up to about 2 inches (5 cm) long, catch mainly ants. It is the only species in its genus and in its family.

Cephalotus follicularis is a low, rosette-forming plant that grows from an underground rhizome and, with age, forms clumps of many rosettes. The biggest clumps reach about 60 cm (2 ft) across. It produces two kinds of leaves. Flat, spoon-shaped, glossy leaves up to 15 cm (6 in) long including the stalk carry out most photosynthesis, while modified leaves form egg-shaped pitchers up to about 5 cm (2 in) long that lie on the ground at an angle or sink into moss. Intermediate leaves with half-formed traps occur occasionally.

Pitchers develop a dark red color in strong light but stay green in shade. Very hairy ridges, or wings, run up the outside of each pitcher and may guide crawling insects to the mouth. The mouth is ringed by a thickened, glandular peristome with inward-pointing, claw-like teeth, and a lid patterned with translucent patches arches over it, keeping rain out.

In early summer (January and February in Australia) a single flower stalk up to 60 cm (2 ft) tall carries small, creamy white six-parted flowers without petals. The species is the only member of the family Cephalotaceae. Its nearest relatives are non-carnivorous families such as Cunoniaceae and Elaeocarpaceae, which places it closer to apples and oaks than to the other pitcher plants; its pitchers evolved independently of those of Nepenthes and Sarracenia.

Native Region: Southwest Western Australia, between Augusta and Cape Riche near Albany (endemic)

Climate Zones: Mediterranean, mild; wild plants see warm days to about 25°C (77°F) and cool winters

The species occurs in a coastal strip of about 400 km (250 mi) in the far southwest of Western Australia, from Augusta to Cape Riche, around the town of Albany. It grows on moist, acidic peaty sands in swamps and seepage areas, along creeks and streams, and often in cushions of sphagnum moss or among clumping sedges and restios. Some authors describe these sites as bogs and others as fens; in cultivation it behaves as a fen plant and dislikes stagnant soil. The plant is adapted to fire: it resprouts from the rhizome after bushfires and is among the first plants to reappear after a burn. Some populations are protected in D'Entrecasteaux National Park.

Kukura Saizi: Pitchers up to 2 in (5 cm) long; clumps up to 24 in (60 cm) across; flower stalk to 24 in (60 cm)

Chiyero chekukura: Slow

Trap Type: Pitfall Trap

Each pitcher is a pitfall trap that is already partly filled with digestive fluid when its lid lifts. Nectar glands on the underside of the lid and between the ridges of the rim lure insects, mainly ants. Prey that slip past the toothed rim meet a smooth inner wall with downward-pointing projections and an overhanging collar, and fall into the fluid and drown. Flying insects trapped inside fly toward the translucent 'windows' in the lid, mistaking them for open sky, and drop back down. Two red gland patches low in the pitcher secrete the fluid and digestive enzymes, including proteases, phosphatases and esterases, and absorb the released nutrients. The lid does not move; it keeps rain from diluting the fluid.

It is the only species in the family Cephalotaceae.
The genus name comes from Greek for 'head' and 'ear', describing the anthers; follicularis refers to the small sack-like pitchers.
Its bristly surfaces once earned it the nickname 'vegetable hedgehog'.
The larvae of Badisis ambulans, a wingless, ant-like fly, develop inside the pitchers and have never been found anywhere else.
Its genome was sequenced in 2017, and comparison of its pitchers with its flat leaves suggested that unrelated carnivorous plant lineages co-opted similar genes for digestion.
The cultivar name 'Hummer's Giant' covers plants much larger than normal, and 'Dudley Watts' was selected for an unusually large peristome.
It holds the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Botanical specimens were first gathered when HMS Investigator visited King George Sound in December 1801 and January 1802. The expedition botanist Robert Brown recorded in his diary on 2 January 1802 that the pitcher plant had been found in flower the day before by Ferdinand Bauer and William Westall. Brown gave it the unpublished name Cantharifera paludosa. The following year Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, botanist on Nicolas Baudin's expedition, collected it again, and in 1806 Jacques Labillardière published it as Cephalotus follicularis from Leschenault's specimens. Because the fruit on that specimen was poor, Labillardière placed the plant in the rose family; better fruiting material collected by William Baxter in the 1820s led Brown to give it a family of its own, Cephalotaceae.

Living plants reached Kew Gardens in 1823, delivered by Phillip Parker King, and a specimen that flowered there in 1827 was illustrated in Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Today the plant is grown worldwide, though growers widely regard it as temperamental. The IUCN Red List assessed it as Vulnerable in 2020 because of its small range, habitat loss and collecting, although Australian national and Western Australian lists class it as not threatened.

1. Cephalotus, Wikipedia
2. Growing Cephalotus follicularis, International Carnivorous Plant Society
3. Cephalotus: the Albany pitcher plant, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
4. Cephalotus: various types, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
5. Cephalotus: cultivation, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
6. Cephalotus: range and conservation status, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)