2016 Plant of the Year, Honorable Mention

Proposed by: a member of New Orleans Town Gardeners, Inc., Zone IX
Seconded by: a member of Garden Study Club of New Orleans, Zone IX

The carnivorous yellow pitcher plant, Sarracenia flava, traps insects by using a vibrant yellow rolled leaf on top of a pitcher form bloom which can reach up to 3 feet in height. The upper part of the leaf is flared into a lid covering the tubular pitcher preventing excess rain from entering and diluting the digestive secretions within. Once the insect has landed on the upper regions of the pitcher, it is guided down towards the opening of the pitcher tube by short, stiff, downwards pointing hairs and brightly patterned guiding markings. The surface of the opening of the pitcher tube is studded with nectar-secreting glands. These nectars contain not only sugars, but an alkaloid which intoxicates its prey causing it to lose its footing and tumble to the bottom of the pitcher from which there is no escape. Because the pitcher plant traps insects for food, it does not require fertile soil and grows in acidic, low nutrient, damp wet bogs along the eastern seaboard from Alabama, through Florida and Georgia up the coastal plains to Virginia. It spreads by rhizomes and can be propagated easily by seed. In the life cycle of this plant, first the pitcher is produced; then large yellow flowers with long, strap like petals hanging umbrella style at the end of a two-foot scape. In the fall, the plant stops producing carnivorous leaves and produces a flat non-carnivorous leaf called a phyllodia. Photograph courtesy of W. D. and Dolphia Bransford, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.