Hi Frank,
S.oreophila seems to be closely related to S.flava and probably
was subspecies of S.flava in it's past. However, the petals
tend to be very light colored unlike the super bright yellows of
of S.flava. Also, the flowers have almost no smell to them, again
unlike S.flava, which can have a very sweet odor or sickly sweet
which is unpleasent. Also, S.oreophila has adapted to a drier climate
and responds to "drought" conditions by loosing all it's pitchers
and replaces them with very short a curly phyllodia. The pitchers
are very nice like S.flava, but tend to be shorter on average.
> By the way, the article is about the genetic diversity in populations of the
> rare pitcher plants, S. oreophila and "S. jonesii" (also known as S. rubra
> subsp. jonesii). How widely is the name S. jonesii used? The only times I
> have seen it used recently are when conservation of the plant is being
> discussed, ie. it is easier to convince politicians that a species should be
> conserved, as opposed to a mere subspecies. Am I being too cynical?;)
If our politicians knew more about reality rather than getting elected,
maybe these sort white lies would not be needed (and maybe they could
recoginize such a lie, making it worthless?). Anyway, the book
is still out on S.rubra, in my opinion. I really doubt all those
plants that are presently coined S.rubra subsp. XXXX are infact
S.rubra. A couple maybe of hybridgenic origin but that's another story.
Dave Evans