White Topped Pitcher Plants in Autumn

This Fall, the White Topped Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia leucophylla) have rallied, taking on a new level of beauty. The spring pitchers put up but this plant tend to be less colorful than the ones that grow in the Autumn. Fall pitchers have more and brighter white coloring and are very obvious to the eye.

In the wild, these pitcher plants can be found from northeast Florida across to eastern Mississippi. In the wild, this species is now found in about 250 sites. Habitat loss, fire suppression and cutting from the floral trade have damaged these plant communities. In Georgia, the White Topped Pitcher Plant is now only found at a single site on private land.

These Sarracennias attract prey first, by being obvious in a landscape and second, with drops of nectar that are secreted by the rolled lip of the pitcher. As insects begin to search for more nectar, that is when the trouble begins.

Each pitcher leaf is essentially a long funnel. If you look closely, you can see a fine sheen of downward pointing hairs that line the top of the pitcher and continue down the throat. These help guide insects deeper inside the plant, but work against them as they try to escape. To an insect trying to leave a pitcher, these tiny hairs become a wall of pikes pointed right at them.

Continuing down the tube, the walls of the pitcher become slick with a waxy substance that keeps prey moving ever downward. At the bottom is a pool of liquid that includes digestive enzymes. Once arriving here, insect prey will be slowly dissolved and digested by the plant.