Sarracenia leucophylla is starting to make its presence known...
The Sarracenia leucophylla in my collection are sending up their late summer pitchers!
The pitchers roar up out of the ground, climbing high into the sky while developing a beautiful white laced with red and green. My S. leucophylla plants this year had pretty unimpressive pitchers in the spring. I'm glad these emerging pitchers look much more alluring. S. leucophylla brightens up my collection in late summer when the flavas are not looking so great.
Sarracenia always look nice when backlit by the sun. They look like they're glowing!
Some pitchers are already open! I'm looking forward to seeing a mass of yawning S. leucophylla pitchers in a few weeks!
Sarracenia alata is also looking nice and dark. These late summer pitchers are the darkest of the year. They provide a nice contrast with the bright white of the S. leucophylla plants.
An observation...I noticed that gently squeezing the sides of an unopened developing pitcher feels kind of like squeezing a fully inflated balloon. There's a bit of a push back from the pitcher. This is interesting...a developing pitcher has no holes directly connecting the external atmosphere with the interior of the tube, but somehow the pitcher is getting "inflated." Even if the developing interior had a direct connection to the external environment, there would have to be some mechanism by which the air is sealed inside. I wonder how the plant pumps air into the developing pitcher. And what kind of gas is inside the pitcher? Just regular air? Or possibly oxygen (from photosynthesis)? If you have an answer or comment, please comment below!
Update 9/5/19 I heard from an ICPS board member that CP pitchers do not have any known mechanism to pump air in or seal air inside. It seems that air enters the interior of a developing pitcher just through diffusion. That would make the composition of the gas inside the pitcher the same as the composition of the surrounding air.
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AuthorRising college student who enjoys growing carnivorous plants. Archives
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