This is very interesting. Recently an extremely informative and
delightful article about a pond in South Carolina was published in the
Aust. CP Society Bulletin. This article---a real joy to read---was
written by B. Meyers-Rice. Hey, that's me! :)
Anyway, I identified some _S.flava_ in this pond as being of the
_var. rugelii_ form, which of course is the all-green plant with a
red blood-stain patch of colour on the column, just below the point of
attachment of the pitcher lid. The S.C. plants are very large, and I
noted that they may rightfully classed as the _var. maxima_, which of
course is the very large _var. rugelii_.
Or so I thought.
In the most recent ACPS bulletin, Don Schnell (who is an authority on
Sarrs) has a few comments. He notes that the _var. maxima_ was originally
applied to an all green plant, and that large size is apparently not
necessarily a characteristic of this variety. Furthermore, he notes that
referring to the throat splotch _S.flava_ as _var. rugelii_ is not
necessarily correct. It is slightly ambiguous what Masters meant when
he referred to the _var.rugelii_ plant has having a ``well marked lid.''
I'm giving up on these varietal names for _Sarracenia flava_. The various
_var. ornata, atropurpurea_, etc. were apparently named by a brit
horticulturist who didn't know the plants in the field, and just named
nice varieties from the 1880 UK greenhouse collections.
I'm sticking with unambiguous names like, red tube/yellow lid, or all-red,
etc.
Barry