Sarracenia Species Redefined

New Sarracenia Relationship Tree

A new paper has the potential to redefine the species within the genus Sarracenia. In fact, efforts are already underway to utilize this research in redefining Sarracenia. (More about that when it's revealed).

In the meantime, some interesting new information has been revealed, much of which is detailed in the phylogenetic tree above. (The tree above was adapted from the paper). Some of the cool information includes:

S. purpurea has been revealed to be related in a very interesting way. S. purpurea montana is thought to be the most ancient variety of S. purpurea, and is more distantly related to the other three members (S. purpurea burkii, S. purpurea venosa, and S. purpurea purpurea). If this information withstands scientific scrutiny, then I think it's pretty clear that designating S. purpurea burkii as a different species (S. rosea) is invalid without also designating S. purpurea montana as a separate species. As it is, my guess is further taxonomic review will not find the purpurea group not separated out into species, but we shall see.

Interestingly, S. oreophila and S. flava are not closely related, despite their similarities in pitcher structure and growth habit. (It should be noted that, as far as I saw, the study only broke down a few varieties of S. flava, so I'm not sure too much can be said about the intraspecies relationship).

S. alabamensis can now be said to be a separate species, one which converged with the S. rubra group. It is interesting to see that its relationship with rubra is more distant than either with S. leucophylla or S. alata.

Regarding S. alata, I'm glad to see that it is so closely allied to most of the S. rubra group. I've often found it difficult to distinguish some S. alata from some S. rubra, and hybrids are particularly difficult. I'd be interested in seeing a more detailed study on a variety of S. alata and S. rubra to further clarify the relationship between all these plants. (I'm also wondering if it will turn out that S. rubra gulfensis will be redesignated as S. gulfensis or S. alata will be incorporated into a larger species, which is comprised of most species of S. rubra).

For more about the results, see Stephens, J.D., et al. Resolving phylogenetic relationships of the recently radiated carnivorous plant genus Sarracenia using target enrichment. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.01.015

(P.S., in writing this, I realized I misspelled "montana" as "montata" in the photo above).