Purple Pitcher Plant

Sarracenia purpurea is a low-growing North American pitcher plant whose squat, rain-filled pitchers trap insects. It has the widest range of any Sarracenia and is the only member of the genus that grows in cold temperate climates.

Sarracenia purpurea, also called the northern pitcher plant, turtle socks or side-saddle flower, forms a rosette of curved, squat pitchers up to about 12 inches (30 cm) long. Unlike the tall trumpet pitchers of other Sarracenia, its hood stands upright and does not shield the mouth, so the pitchers fill with rainwater. The hood is often veined in red and is covered with stiff hairs pointing toward the opening. Individual pitchers can last for two years, longer than in most other Sarracenia.

Two subspecies are generally recognized. Subsp. purpurea grows in the north, mostly in areas that were glaciated, and has smooth, glossy pitchers and darker red to purple flowers. Subsp. venosa grows to the south, from New Jersey to Georgia, and has rougher, hairy pitchers. Intermediate plants occur where the two meet, from New Jersey toward Virginia. Gulf Coast plants once treated as S. purpurea are now usually separated as Sarracenia rosea.

The flowers, borne in spring on separate stalks, are purplish red; an anthocyanin-free form of the northern subspecies, f. heterophylla, has bright green leaves and yellow flowers.

The species is cultivated as an ornamental, and subsp. purpurea has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It is the floral emblem of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Native Region: Eastern North America: Atlantic seaboard, Great Lakes and most of Canada; introduced in Europe

Climate Zones: Cold temperate; subsp. purpurea grows outdoors in USDA 5 and colder

Sarracenia purpurea grows in nutrient-poor, acid bogs and fens. Its range covers the eastern seaboard of the United States, the Great Lakes region and every Canadian province and territory except Nunavut and Yukon, making it the most widely distributed pitcher plant. Within that range it occurs in isolated patches, and it is endangered or vulnerable over much of the southern part of its range. Mountain populations occur in North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina. Introduced, naturalized populations exist in the western United States and in several European countries, including Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Mature Size: Pitchers up to 12 in (30 cm) long, held low in a rosette

Growth Rate: Moderate

Trap Type: Pitfall Trap

Insects such as flies, ants, spiders, moths and hornets are guided by the downward-pointing hairs of the hood and fall into the rainwater collected in the pitcher, where they drown. New pitchers produce their own digestive enzymes. As pitchers age, digestion relies increasingly on a community of organisms living in the fluid, including larvae of the pitcher plant mosquito Wyeomyia smithii and the midge Metriocnemus knabi, along with protists, rotifers and bacteria, which break prey down and release nutrients the plant absorbs. Studies report that fewer than 1% of visiting insects are captured.

A 2019 study in Ontario found juvenile eastern newts in nearly 20% of the plants examined.
Pitchers can stay functional for two growing seasons.
It is the floral emblem of Newfoundland and Labrador and appeared on the province's penny until 1938.
Algonquin, Cree, Haudenosaunee and Mi'kmaq peoples used a root infusion as a treatment for smallpox.
The pitcher plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, develops in the fluid of its pitchers.
Seeds disperse a median of only about 2 inches (5 cm), which makes its huge range something of a puzzle.

The genus name honors Michel Sarrazin, who in the late 17th century sent live plants of S. purpurea from Canada to the Paris botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, who described the species. Linnaeus adopted the name in his Species Plantarum of 1753, applying it to S. purpurea and S. flava. The carnivorous nature of the genus was not demonstrated until research by Joseph H. Mellichamp in 1887.

The naming of the two subspecies has a tangled history. Rafinesque (1840) named the northern and southern plants as separate species; Wherry (1933, 1972) treated them as subspecies, and his 1972 names, subsp. purpurea and subsp. venosa, came into general use. A later typification would have reversed those names, but in 1999 the botanical nomenclature committee accepted Martin Cheek's proposal to keep the familiar usage.

1. Sarracenia purpurea, Wikipedia
2. Sarracenia, Wikipedia
3. About Sarracenia purpurea, the purple 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. Pests & Other Issues, International Carnivorous Plant Society