Does Sarracenia rubra varieties have any attraction for fire ants?
A quick (?) question - is the long "filament/spike" on the apex/point of
the Sarracenia flava pitcher lid a sure-thing IDing feature? I've
noticed that our flava has about 1 inch long "spikes", and the alata
"Red Throat" x flava (or vice versa) hybrid has much shorter ones -
other plants have little if any obvious spikes.
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In the wild, eastern panhandle S. rubra (small cyclindrical pitchers)
seems to attract more ants in my experience than flava, leuco., or
psittacina in the same location. The more eastern rubra are smaller. I
have found them in close proximity to ant nests and they seem to be
efficient ant catchers. Western panhandle and Miss. rubra (looks more
like alata), don't seem to show any special affinity for ants (that I
have observed).
S flava with inch long spikes?! -some prefer classical, these must
prefer heavy metal. :) Do they pierce their lids (ouch!) and hang
little dead flies in the holes? - Does metal musical preference relate
to subspecies or variant status? :) -- S flava 'rugelii - heavy metal'
crap, did I misspell rugelii?, you botanists have just got to stop
messin' with my spelling disability Tom Massey@hal.fmhi.usf.edu