Sarracenia psittacina in the wild, various forms

[meizwang]

S. psittacina forma driedndead. Charlton Co, GA site #1 The drought and extreme heat wave for many months took its toll on Sarracenia habitats. There weren't many parrot pitcher plants in this site, and of the ones that remained, they were struggling. Look at how cool those old dead pitchers look-plants from this population looked like they had fat heads:

S. psittacina Same population as above. Looks like this one will make it, but those pitchers really got messed up. Might take a year or two of good growing conditions before this plant is back to normal.

S. psittacina Baldwin Co, AL There were a few individuals in this spot that had really green pitchers despite receiving a decent amount of sunlight. This one doesn't appear to be AF-notice the little amounts of red pigmentation on the leaf. It could still very well have yellow flowers though-that does occur in non-antho free plants:

S. psittacina Bay Co, FL Notice the long pitchers and the shorter pitchers. It seems as though the plants produce longer, skinnier pitchers during the spring, and the shorter, compact pitchers in the summer/fall. Plants from this population had deep red pitchers contrasted with bright white speckles:

S. psittacina Bay Co, FL. Another example of elongated spring pitchers and shortened summer/fall pitchers:

S. psittacina Bay Co, FL close up of summer pitcher:

S. psittacina Liberty Co, FL The standard look, great red coloration:

S. psittacina Liberty Co, FL. These were actually giants, but it's hard to tell in the pic. Notice how the shape of the pitcher head is slightly different than the image above. Lots of variation within similar populations:

S. psittacina Franklin Co, FL These were hard as hell to find! The pitchers were pretty gigantic, and had a bronzy color to them. Many pitchers in this population have less white speckles than your average S. psittacina. I've seen pictures of plants in Wakula Co, FL that are very similar to these plants:

S. psittacina Franklin Co, FL close up of the bronze pitchers. Very unique:

S. psittacina Ware Co, GA These were big but not gigantic. I bet they were a bit smaller this year because of the drought:

S. psittacina Ware Co, GA Close up so you can see the details of the pitcher. Compare this pitcher other populations above-see any differences?

Edited October 24, 2011 by meizwang

[Fredders]

Thanks for posting the pics of S. pstittacina in the wild.

I'e always liked this species and haven't seen too many photos of the variation and of plants from different locations.

Nice work!

Cheers

Steve

[jimscott]

Great in situ shots!

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

A nice report, I didn't know that this species could vary too like others sarracenia.

[meizwang]

Thanks all! Like the rubras, these plants are definitely underappreciated. What is there to not like about them?

[Kiwi Earl]

Absolutely fascinating Mike. Many thanks for posting. Such contributions help keep us all up to date with the status of various habitats, local conditions within them, growth responses of the species found and the variability of those species at each location. This post was an excellent example, not least with respect to the variance in pitcher length in the Bay Co specimens.

Invaluable