Sarracenia oreophylla var. ornata, de Kalb co., Alabama, R-S8a

Sarracenia oreophylla var. ornata, de Kalb co., Alabama, R-S8a has nice red-veined pitchers. 

Sarracenia oreophylla is a unique plant. It sprints thru the growing season: simultaneously flowers and pitchers early in the spring growing season. This means that it eats its pollinators, and is one of the very few carnivorous plants doing so. By about mid-summer, it already goes into phyllodia production. Phyllodia are a secondary type of flat leaf-like organ that allows the plant to photosynthesize. Phyllodia are characteristically small and sicle-shaped. For oreophylla this is an adaptation to naturally drier summer months in its native habitat. Basically it eats its flying insects in spring and goes vegan by late summer. The pictures you see in the gallery are all from one plant, from different seasons. You can see how strikingly different the plant looks during winter and late spring.

The pitchers grow up to 60 cm tall. In var. ornata their mouths are heavily veined. It is extremely cold-hardy and is adapted for inland snowy, mountainous conditions.

S. oreophylla is the most endangered of the genus, limited to around 34 small sites in Tennessee (may be extinct here), North Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. Some sites contain less than 50 individual plants. It is critically endangered in the wild and listed in Appendix I of CITES.

We offer M size plants, has flowered once or will flower in the coming season, one growing point.