The plants respond to the photo period which is in turn controlled
by the Earth's orbit. Plants north and south of equatorial zones
use the length of day light for cues for chages in growth. Soon
Sarracenia plants will be setting their flower buds which are the
last growth they *should* experience. This doesn't always work
like when poeple see their pitchers begin flowering in the fall -
they aren't flowering late but early and were probably confused
somewhat by being removed from their native latitudes. After the
spring and early summer S.flava start to produce those flat winter
leaves. For what ever reason (glaciers cutting the Growing Season
short, the later months of the G.S. were alot drier, both, something
else) the plants experienced environmental pressure to stop making
pitchers at about what is **now** but maybe not always half way
through the G.S..
Has anyone else noticed the S.flava has some differences with other
plants in the genus? They have the largest root systems even when
compared to plants of the same size in other species. The older
pitchers seem to lose their color as they age while all the others
(maybe not S.alata, I'm not very familiar with that one yet) get
darker with red. S.flava (atleast mine do) grow faster and more
robust. This last one is probably because most of genus is from
farther south and have longer G.S.'s in nature. What have the
Southern growers on the list seen in this regard?
Dave Evans