One of the fascinating things about travelling is when you stumble upon something unexpected. One such thing for me was a few years ago when I was hiking in Newfoundland and discovered pitcher plants all over the place- it turns out the pitcher plant is the official flower of Newfoundland and Labrador, a fact I was totally unaware of. Seeing the pitcher plant thriving in the snowy mountains of the Gros Morne National Park actually confused me because the only other place I had ever seen wild pitcher plants growing was in the hot and steamy marshes of South Carolina. Granted, the Newfoundland one was a slightly different species of purple pitcher plant, but it was still a purple pitcher plant and it was growing in the snowy mountains of Newfoundland!
As a kid, I was always fascinated by the carnivorous plants, mostly the Venus Flytraps, but the several varieties of pitcher plants were a close second for me. Back in the 1970s, one could frequently find ads in the back of magazines advertising Venus Flytraps (I did buy one at one point but it didn’t live very long. Not a surprise…) I don’t remember ever seeing ads for pitcher plants, I guess they were not overly intriguing to the comic book reading kids of the 70’s. A quick Google search just showed me that apparently today you can buy them in Lowes, Walmart, and other such places.
It wasn’t until maybe ten years or so ago that I actually saw any carnivorous plants living in the wild. I have spent a great deal of time hanging around in the marshes of southern SC birdwatching, so I guess it was inevitable I would come across them, and when I did, I was delighted and surprised to look down and realize I was standing in front of a patch of the purple pitcher plant! Somehow I had not realized how common they were and became even more fascinated with them. Since that day, the venus fly trap moved to second on my list of favorite carnivorous plants. I was delighted… but not as delighted and surprised as when I saw them in Newfoundland.
First of all, where we saw them in Newfoundland, the Tablelands section of Gros Morne National Park, there was very little in the way of plant life. Also, there was a lot of snow still around at the time. The mountains there are actually mantle rock from the earth’s crust, and are slowly expanding and “falling apart”. These mantle rocks are to the very acidic and almost poisonous and whatever small amounts of soil around them is not winning any awards as far as supporting plant life. There are huge fields of periodotite and serpentinite (there were informational signs there explaining all of this!) and have a high iron content which sort of rusts as it sits out in the open, and it is apparently hard for plans to survive in this environment. Something that a lot of people might not realize, is that these mountains are actually a part of the Appalachian Mountain chain, but they are vey young and very different from the Appalachian Mountains in the United States in almost every way. Most of Newfoundland does not look like the Tablelands, by the way….. it is a place of stunning beauty and wonderful, friendly people.
Above are photos of the very places we first saw the Purple Pitcher Plants. Below are the actual pitcher’s we saw that day.
When we returned from that far north vacation, my wife bought me (from a reputable grower) two small purple pitcher plants and every year more and more of them spring up from their bed of sphagnum moss. Being rhizomes, they can “reproduce” quickly- and they have! I guess I am thinking about all of this today because my plants are coming out of their winter slumber about now and they are flowering. Pitcher Plant flowers are something you don’t see every day (unless I guess you live in the marshes of SC or in Newfoundland!)
For those not familiar with this fascinating plant, here are some bits of information about the Purple Pitcher Plant for you:
- Pitcher Plants do not need soil to grow (which explains why we saw them in the Tablelands where there is basically no soil), they generally are found in places with very poor acidic soil, such as in bogs and marshes.
- There are several varities spread out among four families (families: Nepenthaceae, Sarraceniaceae, Cephalotaceae, and Bromeliaceae), the ones mentioned in this post are from the family Sarraceniaceae and include the Purple Pitcher Plants which are much more common in the US than the other families.
- Though they may not be common (and in fact are kind of rare), there are three members of the Sarraceniaceae family that live in the Appalachian Mountains – the Mountain Sweet Pitcher (North and South Carolina), the Southern Appalachian Purple Pitcher (North and South Carolina, Georgia), the Green Pitcher ( Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina) and the Purple Pitcher (which is much more common in the southern Appalachian mountain bogs and swamps).
- Pitcher Plants get their nutrients from digesting insects. Their method of “hunting” is passive and consists of having a deep cavity that collects rainwater, and contains digestive juices. When insects fall or crawl into the cavity, they drown and are digested. The plant also has small hair-like growths that make crawling out of the cavity very difficult.
- Several of the Pitcher Plant varieties are protected and endangered, so don’t just randomly take them when you come across them. There are reputable nurseries that are easily found.
- The Purple Pitcher Plant is the provincial flower of Newfoundland and Labrador.
- Learn more about this cool plant: US Forest Service, Wikipedia, Newfoundland’s Memorial University, Encyclopedia Britannica, and many more!