TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk
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Is there any purpurea hybrids that look very similar to the species itself? This plant was labelled as a hybrid but I thought it looked really like purpurea. One cute thing though, most of the hoods are always overlapping...
Although I would not consider myself an expert by any means, the hoods are not quite as fluted as the venosa burkei that I have, and look as if they have some northern purp genetics in them. Perhaps this was labeled a hybrid because it is a cross between a S. purpurea ssp. purpurea and a S. purpurea ssp. venosa (or burkei)?
I talked with BW a couple of nights ago and told him we cold use his input on this thread. I guess he must be busy...
The main reason I thought a Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purp. x venosa hybrid was because of the labeling of Cindy's plant. This does also resemble montana, but the higher likelihood to me seemed to be a hybrid...
OK! OK! Geez! Can't a guy slip in under the radar here?? Well, I have seen s.purpurea ssp. purpurea look like this. Trouble is, I have seen s. p. var. venosa look like this, montana variant or not. Leaf form is not always a good indicator of species when viewed from the outside. Schnell, in his great CP book, "Carnivorous Plants of the United States and Canada", has some very good guidelines for identifying the plants by leaf structure. The northern purps and its southern cousins have some things about pitcher structure that seem to hold consistently with location, i.e., northern forms or southern forms. Educate yourselves with this volume on CP. I like it better than D'Amato's text, though I read them both. Schnell can usually put you well into the ballpark, IDwise. Use these guidelines to identify this plant, and you can sometimes find out for sure what you have. My s. p. ssp. purpurea was labeled hybrid, but the instructions in the book nailed it as pure purpurea. Labeling is a real problem in many nurseries out there, and that is the problem with dealing with those who just push plants to sell. You can almost never be sure. I only deal with those who know, and avoid all the confusion brought on by bad labeling and lack of knowledge on the part of the nursery "industry".
Just in case you don't have Schnell's book, here is a summary:
subspecies purpurea has 1) ratio of pitcher tube length to width of the mouth is 3:1 or greater; 2) external pitcher surface os smooth to the touch; 3) flowers are dark red to reddish purple; and 4) from the side, the lobes of the pitcher hood do not just barely exceed the pitcher mouth when pinched together
in contrast, subspecies venosa has 1) same ratio os 3:1 or less; 2)external pitcher surface is densely haired; 3) flowers are usually brighter red; and 4) the pinched lobes easily exceed the front edge of the pitcher mouth.
variety montana closely resembles variety venosa, except the hood hairs on montana average 0.8 to 1.0 mm long, whereas on venosa they are greater than 1.0 mm
That looks like a fairly young plant to me and it'll be hard to tell whether it's plain venosa or var. burki until the pitchers are bigger, or it flowers.
I don't see anything in it apart from venosa, burkii or montana though. However, I doubt it's montana due to its rarity though, but you never know.
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