S. purpurea infraspecific taxa

[BarryRice]

Hey Dave,

OK, your posting in the S. purpurea vs. S. rosea thread confused me, so I'm seeking clarification. Let me ask a few questions, which are restricted to the various S. purpurea entities (with S. rosea pulled out and not being discussed).

In the Dave construct, you have:

1)S. purpurea subsp. venosa: Northeastern Georgia, up to Virginia, possibly to NJ and NY (Long Island).

2)S. purpurea subsp. purpurea (coastal expression):
ranges from NJ up the seaboard, possibly into New Brunswick etc.

3)S. purpurea subsp. purpurea (inland expression): Occurs in the Great Lakes regions of USA/Canada.

Is this in general correct? Are you lumping the var. montana plant into your coastal form?

I know there is a single Georgia population of S. purpurea var. montana in NE Georgia, but I also thought there was a single S. purpurea population along the coast of Georgia, too?

[Dave Evans]

Good Afternoon Barry,

No, I would not put S. p. v. montana into the same category as the coastal populations. I have only seen photographs of plants living in the wild, but I have looked at some of the plants ABG is propagating and placing back into one of the mountain populations. They seem rather distinct from other S. purpurea, almost dwarfed in comparison. Still I don't know if they actual fit into S. purpurea venosa, or if they are again another subsp. on their own. For example, the S. flava-like plants living in the mountains are called S. oreophila. I don't have any problem identify them with a separate species taxon. But the purpurea and rubra exposed to the same or very similar migrations and adaptations are assigned to variety status with S. p. v. montana and subsp. with S. rubra jonesii.

Do we really think that S. flava and S. oreophila are more different from each other than S. rubra is from S. rubra jonesii?

I noticed that name of this thread, but I think we need to look at Sarracenia as a whole in order to come up with a good take on these plants. So far, most treatments of the genus have been piece meal. Barry, I have not read your book yet, so please do not think these comments reference your work on Sarracenia.

There were definitely more than just one population of S. purpurea venosa in north eastern Georgia. Perhaps it was one very large population which has been broken up by people and most of those smaller populations have now expired. I personally found a very small patch of S. p on a pine tree farm, near the road. These plants showed no influence from S. rosea in their shape or coloration, actually they looked a lot like plants I have seen in New Jersey... Now this is not a comprehensive sample, I only found a couple of plants, but still, if they were actually connected (even within the last couple hundred years) to the gulf coastal plants (S. r.), I would expect to see some influence from them.

I like your idea of just keeping S. p. v. burkii out of subspecies venosa, but if was removed, would the concept of S. purpurea venosa still be viable?

Or would we end up with something more like:
S. purpurea subsp. burkii
S. p. b. form luteola

S. purpurea subsp. purpurea
S. purpurea purpurea var. montana
S. purpurea purpurea var. xxxx (for southern, coastal plants)
S. purpurea purpurea var. yyyy (for inland, Great Lakes
plants, and perhaps some the northern coastal populations)

BTW, I suspect the double flowers shown by S. rubra could indicate that species is acutally one of the oldest species. The double flowers could be a trait which places them closer to Heliamphora and Darlingtonia when compared against the rest of the of the species.

Good Growing,
Dave Evans

[BarryRice]

Hey Dave,

I'm comfortable keeping S. oreophila and S. flava separate. In common greenhouse cultivation, I see the following fixed traits, where the features for S. flava are in parentheses:

Winter phyllodia: short and recurved (long, erect)
Pitcher longevity: 1/2-2/3 season, withering (full season, persistent)
Pitcher lip: level to slightly indented (deeply indented to spoutlike)
Pitcher lid: flat-convex, small boss (flat-concave, large boss)
Column: poorly developed (medium to strongly developed)

There are a few other features we could invoke. So I'm happy about the species separation. I don't feel qualified, though, to opine on the rubra-complex.

Barry

P.S. I don't go into this in much detail in my book. I let Don Schnell cover this!

B

[BarryRice]

Hey Dave,

Keeping us on S. purpurea as much as possible, I think that the following makes sense to me. I suggest using the subspecies concept, because "subspecies" is usually used to denote populations that are separated by geographic range, while varieties indicate plants that have strongly overlapping ranges. So I think that using "subspecies" mostly makes sense here....

So, I'd take S. purpurea s. lat. as the following:

S. rosea (or treat it as a new subspecies)
S. purpurea subsp. venosa (NJ--Coastal Georgia)
S. purpurea subsp. purpurea (NJ, northwards to New Brunswick, Great Lakes, Canada)

What I'm trying to understand, is if you think that S. purpurea subsp. purpurea is better thought of as separate coastal and Great Lakes populations. What are your separating features.

I will admit straight out that I am greatly conflicted about what to call S. purpurea var. montana. I don't know if I "believe" in this taxon.

Cheers

Barry

[rsivertsen]

I find this rather interesting, now that I have tracked several bogs with populations of S. purpurea from the NJ Pine Barrens, to northern NJ sites, to Orange County, NY, (north of Port Jervis) to Massachusetts, and find many of these populations fairly similar, however, a recent visit to a few sites in eastern Pennsylvania, (near Stroudsburg, Pa.), and westward (during the ICPS conference) in W. Va., I observed S. purpuera populations that appeared to me to be more similar to the southern forms, having greener, larger, bulbous pitchers, with hoods that are larger and more undulated, with red venation patterns while the populations from the NJ Pine Barrens, and northward, often had several specimens that were all red, with smaller hoods that were less undulated, and some with no undulation at all.

[ICPS-bob]

This is fascinating. It would be very interesting to see the results of molecular studies on these intergrade and disjunct populations.

[Dave Evans]

Dear Barry and Rich,

What I am having trouble separating is S. purpurea venosa (found from NE Georgia, north into Virginia) from S. purpurea purpurea which is found along the rest of the East Coast north of VA. But I don't have any trouble separating it from the S. purpurea purpurea found around the Great Lakes. These are more tubular, sometimes they almost resemble S. catesbiae. The flowers of all three groups are very close, and this shows their close relationship. But there does seem to be some consistent differences, especially regarding leaf shape.

Rich, it would be great if we could visit some of these sites and photograph the plants, especially when they flower...

As for the hood shapes and size, it seems to vary by population and by individual plants, more than by being from the south vs. from the north. The southern plants do seems to have pitchers which are squater, or more infundibular, in shape.

Good Growing,
Dave E

barryrice said:

Hey Dave,

Keeping us on S. purpurea as much as possible, I think that the following makes sense to me. I suggest using the subspecies concept, because "subspecies" is usually used to denote populations that are separated by geographic range, while varieties indicate plants that have strongly overlapping ranges. So I think that using "subspecies" mostly makes sense here....

So, I'd take S. purpurea s. lat. as the following:

S. rosea (or treat it as a new subspecies)
S. purpurea subsp. venosa (NJ--Coastal Georgia)
S. purpurea subsp. purpurea (NJ, northwards to New Brunswick, Great Lakes, Canada)

What I'm trying to understand, is if you think that S. purpurea subsp. purpurea is better thought of as separate coastal and Great Lakes populations. What are your separating features.


Cheers

Barry

[rsivertsen]

That sounds good! I'd also like to photograph some of the Drosera hybrids in the NJ Pine Barrens, the original site where I found D. hybrida is nearly gone due to succession, and only a few plants still remain. There's a funny story behind it too!

[BarryRice]

Dave,

Do you have any comments about Schnell's feelings (as mentioned in his 2nd edition book) that there are two general expressions of S. purpurea var. venosa along the Atlantic coast, i.e. a variant that becomes solid blush red, vs. a variant that maintains its intense venation?

Barry

[Michael Catalani]

barryrice said:

Dave,

Do you have any comments about Schnell's feelings (as mentioned in his 2nd edition book) that there are two general expressions of S. purpurea var. venosa along the Atlantic coast, i.e. a variant that becomes solid blush red, vs. a variant that maintains its intense venation?

Barry

There's also a red form of S. rosea (S. purpurea ssp venosa var burkeii). Whats unusual about this plant besides its color is that the hood/flap is not ruffled as in the typical veined plants. The hood/flap greatly resembles those plants of the northern S. purpurea ssp purpurea, especially forma heterophylla, but larger.


I wonder if the Atlantic coast S. purpurea ssp venosa red plants have similar hood/flap traits?

Here's a picture of the red form of S. rosea from southern Alabama, so you can see the hood/flap.

[Dave Evans]

Dear Barry,

I can not make any association with redder plants, other than they tend to grow in soils of mostly white sand with more sun exposure... I am assuming the higher light levels will select for redder plants, but it is not that strong of a push and greener plants also do fine in very strong light.

You have two photographs (somewhere in the travel logs) which shows this quite well, as comparison of D. intermedia from NJ vs. one from FL. The redder, shorter plant is in white sand. The taller, greener plants were growing in peat muck. The plants in the peatmuck are receiving far less light, as the plants in white sand are receiving light from overhead and below.

Good growing,
Dave E.

barryrice said:

Dave,

Do you have any comments about Schnell's feelings (as mentioned in his 2nd edition book) that there are two general expressions of S. purpurea var. venosa along the Atlantic coast, i.e. a variant that becomes solid blush red, vs. a variant that maintains its intense venation?

Barry

[Dave Evans]

Dear Bob,

They are not disjunct (the range is continous), rather they are just growing in diferent conditions. The recumbent plants from Florida panhandle area are disjunct. Did you mean the plants that are growing in the mountains (AKA S. p. v. montana)?

admin said:

This is fascinating. It would be very interesting to see the results of molecular studies on these intergrade and disjunct populations.

[ICPS-bob]

I suppose there is a degree of physical or biological separation in all populations. Whether this meets the definition of disjunct can be a matter of discussion. The degree of separation may be distance or an uninhabitable separation. Some populations are truly remote (separated by vast oceans), others on relatively close islands, some in lakes separated by land or land separated by water. I imagine that with S. purpurea, although the range may be considered continuous at one scale, at a local scale, individual bogs containing the species are physically separated so that transfer of genes may be easy or difficult, depending on the transfer agent (wind, water, animal, etc.).

In any event, it would be interesting to see how these various "subspecies" of purpurea compared using modern molecular genetic tools.