It's been about a month and a half since the Sarracenia plants finished their winter nap in cold storage, and many of them are flowering. This one is Sarracenia flava, the Yellow Pitcher Plant, a carnivore native to the southeastern United States from Virginia to Florida. The particular form in the photo, without any red markings around the pitcher mouths, is relatively common in the Carolinas, according to Donald Schnell in Carnivorous Plants of the United States and Canada.Sarracenia flava is an imposing thing, as carnivorous plants go, and this one has leaves about 25 inches (64 cm) tall. When it is placed outside in the summer, the pitchers fill up almost to their tops with trapped flies, wasps and yellow jackets.
