Sarracenia purpurea (Northern & Southern Subspecies)

Sarracenia purpurea gibbosa (Rafinesque) Wherry

Northern pitcherplant

by Edgar T. Wherry

Northern pitcher plant ranges from Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey northward over a vast territory in this country and Canada. The geographic relations, together with the presence of intermediates between the northern and southern subspecies in southern New Jersey, indicate that the northern one originated in that region. Evidently the southern ancestor, after arriving in New Jersey, became variable, and gave rise to descendants differing more or less in morphological and physiological characters. Most of these, lacking ability to extend their ranges, have remained where they originated. One, however, became highly aggressive, and as it also differs in pitcher shape, it is classed as a distinct subspecies.

During the ice advances of the glacial epoch, this pitcher plant was of course unable to migrate northward, and merely spread a short distance into Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, but after the retreat of the last ice sheet it soon occupied the newly developed bogs, and even managed to reach sub-Arctic Canada.

Click here for the watercolor by Mary Vaux Walcott.

Click here for USDA's current information and distribution map of this sub-species (Sarracenia purpurea ssp. gibbosa).

Back to the Index of North American Pitcher Plants.

Sarracenia purpurea venosa (Rafinesque) Wherry

Southern pitcherplant

by Edgar T. Wherry

Southern pitcherplant occurs in swamps, bogs, and wet meadows in nearly every part of the state of North Carolina. It probably originated in the region now constituting Henderson and adjacent counties, but when this territory was uplifted, the immediate ancestors of the plant were exterminated. There can be little doubt, however, that it is a remote descendant from Sarracenia jonesii, which has managed to survive in the same general region, for the flowers of the two are almost identical, in spite of the dissimilar leaf shape.

In the course of time its seeds were transported down several of the eastward-flowing rivers, forming colonies on the Piedmont and ultimately on the newly emerging Coastal Plain. Some seeds also found their way down the Chattahoochee River system, and an extensive series of colonies developed near the coast on either side of this valley. In addition, unlike other species, it migrated from northeastern North Carolina to southern New Jersey, over a strip of land which apparently connected these states during the Tertiary and early glacial times.

Click here for the watercolor by Mary Vaux Walcott.

Click here for USDA's current information and distribution map of this sub-species (Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea) 

Back to the Index of North American Pitcher Plants.