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Please Help.

I was given this plant as a Christmas present. I'm loving having it around, but I just want some basic info about it as it came with barely any instructions on the name, origin and how to care for it. As this is my first plant I'm relatively clueless, so any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Cheers,
Joe

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^+1 great beginners sight
 
Nice plant :). Welcome to the club CPAA(Carnivorous plants addicted anonymous).
 
Definitely not x catesbaei, note the areoles and forward-bent hood. That, most likely, is S. x swaniana, purpurea x minor. Still a very easy cross, does well under typical Sarracenia conditions.
 
Hi Joe,
what you have there is a nice Sarracenia, a "North American Pitcher Plant"
(dont worry about the exact variety right now..that is irrelevant to its care anyway, but if you want to know,
its a "mixed hybrid" that probably contains S. purpurea and S. flava in its ancestry)

The main thing you need to know and understand is that is it is *not* a houseplant! ;)
and should not be treated like one..
consider it more like an "outside garden plant"..but one that you dont plant in regular garden dirt.
Five main aspects to proper Sarracenia care:

1. Proper growing medium. (peat moss, spagnum moss, or other similar mix)
2. Outdoors spring, summer and autumn! (and maybe winter, depending on there you live)
3. Give it as much direct sunlight as you possible can..let the sun shine down, directly and strongly.
4. Keep the pot in tray of pure water at all times, dont use tap water! rain water, distilled, or reverse-osmosis water only.
5. Has to have a proper winter dormancy every winter.

Since its early spring, don't even worry about #5 right now, you have 6 months to figure that out for next autumn.
(what you need to do for dormancy will depend on where you live..where do you live? just a city and state is fine)

Also, depending on where you live, it can maybe go outside right now, or you might have to wait until April.
so let us know where you live, and we can take it from there..

Scot
 
As for its exact variety..no one will ever know.
people can debate what it *might* be..that's fine.
but you should never give it any kind of actual label, such as "S. x Catesbaei" because it is impossible to know for sure.
So don't label it, officially, as anything other than "mixed hybrid"..

Scot
 
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