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S. Purpuria, almost 1 year on.


Ian_P

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You're telling that last photo is the same as this plant?

http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/pitcherperfect1/media/July%2013/IMG_0173_zpsfb0b4dda.jpg.html

You got the mutant, that is for sure :) This population looks weird.

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And it has a normal purpurea flower?

These other plants actually do look like S. purpurea venosa...

http://sarracenia.pr...k-columbus-updt

It might be a trick of the camera. How does your plant compare to those in that other message thread? It helps a lot when you can look at them in person.

Edited by Dave Evans
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I just got it this summer from a trade, i will know for sure when it flowers, Looks to me like it has the same shape of some of the old dock purps in mike's post, but it seems to be a darker red, which could be assumed since it is the middle of winter, i could belive it is a hybrid between 2 different clones. It will hopefully flower this spring, then i will know for sure, it could have been a mislabeling

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Well as far as names go, I generally just call mine "Pongo" due to the smell it gave off after a small slug fell in a pitcher last year. :bad::laugh1:

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not involving myself in any arguments, a comment has intrigued me, sarracenia seed collection from the wild in the uk? where and when would this take place? is it legal? and can the same be done for d rotundiflora and d anglica?

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It depends on the location and if they have set any rules.

AFAIK, in the UK they consider S. purpurea to be invasive threatening species which will reduce biodiversity, which is crazy, but the logic I've heard... One purpurea will feed thousands of tiny insects throughout the year. Which go on to feed other species. It is also non-competitive. Yeah, that sounds like something that will reduce biodiversity--Not! It is actually the reverse, it is a cornerstone species around which communities of other species congregate.

Edited by Dave Evans
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Dave it's not crazy. As you should know species introduced outside of their natural range can have devastating effects on native habitats. Sarracenia purpurea grows fast in our mild climate and at the very least displaces native bog vegetation, which is a scarce resource in Europe. Just last year several tonnes of Sarracenia were removed from just one bog the plant can form dense mats with little competition ( and none of its natural control species)... Classic pattern. Not as bad as some species I know, but still an issue. Please don't dismiss this an issue, it belittles the hard work of our conservation organisations working hard to maintain our native habitats.

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im not in on the argument just would like an answer to that collecting comment, I would love to collect seed from wild growing plants, especially d rotundiflora linearis and anglica, also if there are any sarracenia growing in the uk from which I could do the same? only if its legal of course, im assuming as sarracenia is classed as an invasive species I can go for it there, what about our native plants?

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Paul, you have to ask the people that own the land, they have the final say in the matter. For the most part, unless you are performing some kind of harvest, picking a couple of flowers (containing ripe seed) from wild plants is generally tolerated. These species are locally abundant. Which brings my to my second point.

S. purpurea has a special ecological ability or property that allows it to colonize areas very quickly. That fast spread *is not* an example of *invasiveness*, but it does look similar. That is just an example of S. purpurea qualities. For the plant to be deemed "invasive" it should be displacing or in some other manner attacking native wildlife. Someone had mentioned the purps were "displacing meals for spiders" as the reason for removing the purps; which is a crock! The plants cannot outcompete spiders for food. Rather, they generate food for spiders by providing meals for hundreds of insects they don't catch and eat. They are a cornerstone, at the bottom of the food chain or food web. Pretend science just sounds "scientific", but without data doesn't really mean anything. You can't take an entire model and just apply it to any situation just because you like or are familar that particular model. Or just because it has been well publicized.

Edited by Dave Evans
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An intresting discussion this is. I must add though that is my opinion that you can’t be sure if a foreign species is invasive or harmful to the existing ecosystem. Certainly a fragile system like the scarce bogs left in Europe. I’m sure they all are very balanced ecosystems and that big changes like a good-thriving new species can (could) bring much harm if they are not controlled intensively by someone. I don’t think there is any example of an tropical or invasive or ‘human-introduced’ species that hasn’t been proven harmful. Generally, a invasive species growing ‘too good’, takes the place of native species. I can imagine if there is a little place in a bog where conditions are perfect for cp’s to grow and in UK that would be some Drosera species, that after introduction of a explosive Sarracenia population the original plant would be replaced and disappear in a long-term period of time. This might just be a possibility, not ‘certainly happening’, but to me you cannot say it’s gonna be OK without investigating.

So we should be prudent in being sure what will happen as we are speaking about an ecosystem where everything works together and depends on each other. Sometimes these plants have very close relationships with other species (for example different flowering times) and with animals (their pollinators won’t be eaten when flowering)

Adding a thriving species may disrupt the existing system and it will take years to form a balanced system again. Of course this is the extreme possibility but if it was me, I would say invasive until the opposite is proven.

As more temperate opinion, I can follow your thought very well, mister Evans that (if it’s not doing extremely well), a Sarracenia couldn’t do much damage at first sight to me too.

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Right exactly, my issue is that we don't say some other stuff and teach people false reasons for good actions. It is a preventive measure. We don't know it will cause a problem, but the habitat is too rare to try experiments with. That is a reason for removing them and the only good one given so far.

However, everything is not balanced in nature. Life, rather, is a flow of enery and the flowing energy organizes the matter and in turn the living systems. The living systems such as established ecosystems appear to achieve equalibrium in the longer term, but it is always a give and take in the short term. For example purpurea doesn't have any insect predators in Europe. But the insects could not ignore this new food source endlessly, some will evolve to become better predators of S. purpurea thus reaching something more like equalibrium. What should/needs to be investigated is whether or not the native wild life is negatively impacted during this intervining period. Plants can grow stacked on each other if they aren't invasive.

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There was a time when people would always say that S. purpurea purpurea and S. purpurea venosa have a hybrid zone between the two taxa which covers New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Northern Virginia. With true examples found above and below the "hybrid zone". This is nothing more than gibberish--it isn't the worst idea in and of itself--but where is the data? What we do see is S. purpurea purpurea throughout New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland they do not appear intermediate.

Rather they appear to be a different subspecies or long ago broken up population from the purpurea found further inland around the Great Lakes. The population actually forms a band from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, Rhode Ilsand, Massachusetts, the band goes across part of Long Island, into the New Jersey Pine Barrerns and south into Delaware, Maryland but nearly all the populations in Northern Virginia no longer exist. But this is one single giant population from what I can tell held together on one side by the ocean and on the other by repeating glaciers. You go a little further south in Virginia and bang, you cross an invisible border and all the purpurea are now S. purpurea venosa.

Edited by Dave Evans
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Well, I re-potted my S. Purpurea a few days ago. Let's see how much growth we get this year. Hopefully we'll get some flowers too.

IMAG0319.jpg

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