Sarracenia purpurea subspecies purpurea

Whether reading a book or searching online, you'll find the same basic information about Sarracenia purpurea. It's divided into two subspecies - purpurea and venosa - separated by geography. The northern plants, which encompass every plant north of about New Jersey, comprise subspecies purpurea and the southern plants, which encompass every plant south of about New Jersey, comprise subspecies venosa.

The dividing line between the two subspecies is blurry and most commentators rely on the following criteria (in addition to geographic location) to determine whether any given plant is subspecies purpurea or venosa:

1. The outer surface of the pitchers of the northern subspecies is smooth, whereas the outer surface of the pitchers of the southern subspecies is hairy.
2. The hood of pitcher of the northern subspecies is smaller and, if the edges are pinched together, barely overlap. The hood of the pitcher of the southern subspecies undulates and easily overlaps.
3. The northern subspecies has pitchers which are 3x longer than the width of the pitcher mouth, while the southern subspecies has pitchers which are shorter.
4. The flowers of the northern subspecies are a darker red to reddish-purple.

Large Undulating Hoods

This list is only suggestive, not definitive, and multiple criteria have to be matched to diagnose a random plant as purpurea or venosa. #2 - hood size- is definitely the least likely to match. For instance, in numerous photographs of bogs throughout Northern New England on this site you can find plenty of plants which have hoods just as large and undulating as those plants from Brunswick County, North Carolina, Old Dock, Columbus County, North Carolina, or other places down south. Often sites up here will have plants with hoods which very nearly match those of subspecies venosa (although they may lack the ideal venosa hourglass curve).

Pitchers Less than 3x Longer Than Pitcher Mouth

I'm also suspect about #3 - pitcher mouth to pitcher length ratio. As I've explored bogs containing subspecies purpurea there are definitely more "typical" looking plants  - red band on throat, a hood that isn't as wide, pitchers which are approximately 4" - 6" tall on mature plants, pitcher mouths with a width of 2" - 3" for mature plants - but some of these morphological characteristics, such as pitcher length, are clearly determined by: (A)  the amount of light (less light = longer, greener pitchers), (B) media (living sphagnum usually buries pitchers causing the plant to stretch to reach past the sphagnum whereas a mass of blackened, other mosses will result in shorter, stockier pitchers. So, it's often a definite ecological factor that results in pitcher mouth-to-length ratio in the wild. In my own bog garden, I see something similar. Plants divided from the same stock (i.e. clones) will often grow longer pitchers when situated in living sphagnum than other media. My theory is that the amount of light striking the pitcher and where it strikes has to do with this differential.

As of this weekend, I can also say #1 - the outer surface being hairy or not hairy - is not definite. This surprised me as I thought it was the best of the four criteria. Apparently, subspecies purpurea can be hairy. I actually noted some hairy pitchered plants in the above video from Ossippee, New Hampshire. There were plenty of plants like this and I only thought to take the video because the criteria suddenly sprang to mind and I thought "huh, I don't think northern plants are supposed to be as hairy as S. rosea." Well, they were.

#Bog #Garden today. #Carnivorousplant #Sarracenia #plants #Drosera

A photo posted by Natch Greyes (@natchgreyes) on Jul 5, 2016 at 4:53am PDT

Thinking about the plants in cultivation, I'm under the impression that many Sarracenia purpurea subspecies purpurea in cultivation originate from Ontario and New York, but some can be found from Delaware and, of course, New Jersey. Many of the older, unlabeled plants, may actually come from the old Peter Paul's nursery in New York which was a nursery unscrupulously run by individuals who took a large number of plants from the wild. I don't believe many plants originate from Massachusetts or North in cultivation (likely due to lack of collection as well as the tendency for more northern plants to require longer, colder dormancies). So, it may be that these four criteria work very well for plants in cultivation, but they certainly don't apply* in the wilds of Northern New England.

*Note: I haven't said anything about flower color because I don't actually have any venosa - besides putative S. rosea plants - so I don't have anything to compare flower color to. The northern plants I've seen, besides the heterophylla, all have dark red/maroon flowers. I'm not sure how that compares to venosa.