What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Should I trim my Sarracenia Flower?

Wolfn

Agent of Chaos
Hi. As some of you know, my Sarracenia Purpurea is flowering (the flower is opening up this week). However, I'm a little worried it's putting too much stress on the plant. There are no new leaves forming and what little leaves I have are very small.

I really want my Sarracenia to grow, but I've never seen a Sarracenia flower in real life before (especially among my own plants), so I'm not sure what to do.

Any advice?
 
it depends, do you want to pollinate it and collect seeds later? if not then i normally just cut them off, otherwise, prepare to look at that flower for a while before you get any seeds from it.

~billy
 
Sarracenia flower growth usually precedes new pitcher growth. More insurance that the pitchers will not catch the pollinators apparently. Cut them if you want to. Why not enjoy the lovely flowers?
 
it depends, do you want to pollinate it and collect seeds later? if not then i normally just cut them off, otherwise, prepare to look at that flower for a while before you get any seeds from it.

~billy

Sarracenia flower growth usually precedes new pitcher growth. More insurance that the pitchers will not catch the pollinators apparently. Cut them if you want to. Why not enjoy the lovely flowers?


I don't plan on getting seeds. I guess I'll trim the flower a week or two after it opens.
 
If you plan on cutting the flower after it opens, the plant has already spent a great deal of time and effort putting up its stalk and creating gametes. You may as well just leave it alone, enjoy the sepals for about 2 weeks and just leave the tepals on the plant. These will be retained by the plant pretty much all year.
 
I think the flowers of sarracenia are very beautiful, if I had one flowering, I would just leave it be, the traps are much less interesting, IMO.
 
I think they're worth keeping, as well. Even if you don't want the seed, you can always give it away or put it in next year's NASC auction. And trying to get seed is a good learning experience. But anyways, they're just cool-looking flowers. At the very least, if you give them to a girl you can be pretty sure she's never seen something like them before. (Just make sure they aren't one of the varieties that smells like cat urine, ha.)
~Joe
 
in my opinion, they are THE coolest flowers in all of the flowering plants. Like the others say, do yourself a favor, polinate it, good experience, and cutting it now won't speed up the process of pitcher formation, i don't think. There's nothing to lose in leaving it and trying something new! OR, you could put the pollen up for trade, someone is surely willing to take some :)
 
Joe is right, the flowers score major brownie points.

You might as well leave it, the plant work pretty hard for it. Seeing as its your first nad all, why not? :)
 
  • #10
Leave it. Flowers don't drain the plant - they spend the rest of the year photosynthesising like any part of the plant. With the size of the umbrella styles, they probably do quite well trapping the sun.

Creating seeds takes energy, but the energy over the growing season that the flower converts probably exceeds the energy required to create seeds, let alone a flower that isn't pollinated.
 
Back
Top