FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I went to the store yesterday because over the phone someone told me they had S. Flava in stock. I got there and the tag did say "S. flava" on it, but when i pulled it out of the soil it had half of the name hidden. The tag really says "S. Flava x purpurea"

I'm wondering if it really is a hybrid, or if someone just got lazy and used extra tags and figured they would just put the "purpurea" part in the soil to hide it.

The plants are thin and upright (very young but at least 1 foot tall), yellowish green except for a little purple on the "throat" area. I would assume a purp hybrid would be shorter and "fatter". I might go back today and get some pics. Could anyone confirm it is a pure flava?

It sounds like it's definitely got more flava characteristics, and no purpurea characteristics.

Here's a photo of my S. x catesbaei (S. flava × S. purpurea).



And here's my S. x naczii (S. flava var ornata × S. rosea). Some people classify rosea as a subspecies of purpurea. (Note: There's a little purpurea with a folded-in hood photo-bombing the lower left corner of this photo. You can use it for comparison; don't be confused by it.)



Both have:
* Medium heights that are about halfway between the parents
* Kinda have some of the fatness of the pupurea
* Upright lids that look kind of like flared cobra hoods that look about halfway between the parents (still collect water like a purpurea)
* Prominent downward pointing hairs inside like a purpurea

(Note about color: I like pitcher plants with lots of red veins, so that's what I've got here. Someone could cross a flava with an all-green purpurea ...)

Best you can probably say is "tag said S. Flava x purpurea, but it's got no purpurea in it that I can see."

You'll probably never know for sure unless you can get more info out of the grower ... or take the plant to one of those day-time talk shows that does a DNA test to find out who the real father is.

(I once bought at a garden center what I'm positive was a purpurea f. heterophyla ... they had it helpfully tagged "Nepenthes.")

Yeah, I've seen x catesbaei before. I've actually wanted to buy it but never did and the nursery sold them all.

Eric Millikin wrote: Both have:
* Medium heights that are about halfway between the parents
* Kinda have some of the fatness of the pupurea
* Upright lids that look kind of like flared cobra hoods that look about halfway between the parents (still collect water like a purpurea)
* Prominent downward pointing hairs inside like a purpurea

This one has no hairs in the lid, no fatness at all. & the hood seems normal. I'm not very familiar with sarracenia, but from the purpurea crosses i've seen the purp heritage seems evident.

Eric Millikin wrote: Best you can probably say is "tag said S. Flava x purpurea, but it's got no purpurea in it that I can see."

You'll probably never know for sure unless you can get more info out of the grower ... or take the plant to one of those day-time talk shows that does a DNA test to find out who the real father is.

(I once bought at a garden center what I'm positive was a purpurea f. heterophyla ... they had it helpfully tagged "Nepenthes.")

lol, I know, I usually avoid plants that aren't labelled or seem incorrectly named.

here's pics of "S. Flava........ x purpurea"

Yeah that's not a flava x purp

Yeah that's a flava

I agree, I'm thinking that it's a flava

Edit, didn't realize this was 6-7 months old! Any updates on it SundewWolf?

It certainly doesn't look like a catesbaei in the accepted form, however if the label says it is a x Purpurea then please don't label or pass it on as anything else, as it is entirely possible that being a seed grown plant (which it obviously is) then it is possible that it is a lot more flava than Purpurea, but the genes are still mixed. So it may look like a flava but the Purp genes could come out in any subsequent crossings, which if you label it as flava and pass it on, could negate years of careful breeding. You should assume that whoever made the label was correct, if there is any doubt label it flava hybrid

Cheers
Steve

Update: I gave the sarracenia (and the tag it came with) away. I prefer to be certain of what species or cultivar I'm actually growing.