Yellow Pitcher Plant

Sarracenia flava is a tall, yellow trumpet pitcher plant of the southeastern United States. Its pitchers usually reach about 20 inches (50 cm) and can exceed 3 feet (1 m).

Sarracenia flava produces tall, slender, trumpet-shaped pitchers in spring. The mouth is surrounded by an outward-rolled lip, and a large lid (operculum) arches over it, keeping out excess rain. Pitchers are typically about 20 inches (50 cm) tall but can be more than a meter. The name flava is Latin for yellow.

The species is very variable in color, and seven varieties are recognized, mostly on the basis of pitcher coloration: from the all-green var. maxima to the deep red var. atropurpurea, the copper-lidded var. cuprea, the heavily veined var. ornata and var. rugelii with its large lid and red throat patch. In the field many plants show features of more than one variety.

In spring the plant produces large flowers with long, strap-like, dangling yellow petals on stalks about 20 inches (50 cm) tall. The flowers have a strong smell. Their structure, with an upside-down umbrella-shaped style, encourages insects to enter from above and leave by lifting a petal, which favors cross-pollination. In late summer and autumn the plant stops making pitchers and produces flat, sword-shaped leaves called phyllodia, which photosynthesize through the winter.

S. flava is easy to cultivate and among the most popular carnivorous plants in horticulture. It hybridizes readily; S. × catesbaei (S. flava × S. purpurea) and S. × moorei (S. flava × S. leucophylla) occur in the wild.

Native Region: Southeastern USA: southern Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, southern Virginia

Climate Zones: USDA 7 and warmer; zone 6 in mulched in-ground bogs

The yellow pitcher plant ranges from southern Alabama through Florida and Georgia to the coastal plains of the Carolinas and southern Virginia, with populations also in the Piedmont and mountains of North Carolina. Like other Sarracenia it grows in acidic fens, herb bogs and seasonally wet grasslands; on the southeastern Coastal Plain these are mainly fire-maintained pine savannas, wet prairies and seepage bogs. Without frequent fire, every 1 to 3 years, shrubs and trees invade and shade the plants out. Habitat destruction is the main threat to the species.

Mature Size: Pitchers usually 20 in (50 cm) tall, sometimes over 3 ft (1 m)

Growth Rate: Moderate

Trap Type: Pitfall Trap

Bright yellow color and red, flower-like markings attract insects. Short, stiff, downward-pointing hairs on the upper pitcher guide them toward the mouth, where the rolled lip (nectar roll) is studded with nectar glands. The nectar contains coniine, an alkaloid also found in hemlock, which probably intoxicates prey. Below the lip, smooth waxy walls give no footing, and insects fall to the bottom of the tube, where digestive fluid, wetting agents and downward-pointing hairs prevent escape. Large wasps have occasionally been seen chewing their way out through the pitcher wall.

Its nectar contains coniine, the same toxic alkaloid found in poison hemlock (identified by Mody et al., 1976).
Flowers have a strong odor that can fill a room if a flowering plant is brought indoors.
In autumn it switches from pitchers to flat, non-carnivorous phyllodia, a visible sign of the cost of carnivory.
In cultivation most of the season's pitchers are produced in a single early flush.
It forms natural hybrids, including S. × catesbaei with S. purpurea.
The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2000 as Lower Risk/least concern under the older version 2.3 criteria (Schnell et al., assessment T39715A10259287).

Linnaeus included S. flava in his Species Plantarum of 1753, one of only two Sarracenia species then known, alongside S. purpurea. Its carnivory, like that of the rest of the genus, was doubted for a long time: William Bartram noted in 1793 that the pitchers caught many insects but doubted the plant benefited, and the carnivorous nature of Sarracenia was only proven by Joseph H. Mellichamp in 1887. Several of the color varieties, such as var. maxima and var. ornata, carry names first used in horticulture, and Donald Schnell described var. cuprea and var. rubricorpora and, in 1998, clarified the confused naming of var. rugelii and var. maxima.

1. Sarracenia flava, Wikipedia
2. Sarracenia, Wikipedia
3. About Sarracenia flava, the yellow pitcher plant, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
4. Sarracenia cultivation, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
5. Growing Sarracenia, International Carnivorous Plant Society
6. Winter dormancy? Huh? What? (Wilmington, NC temperature table), The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)