STORY BEHIND THE ART OF JEAN EMMONS

Wildly Exquisite: Florida’s Native Plants

Sarracenia leucophylla

Sarracenia leucophylla

I’ve been growing several sarracenia species on my back deck for a long time. They are easy to grow, as long as you aren’t too nice to them. They need sun, non-chlorinated water, nutrient-poor soil and never, ever fertilize them.

I find them beautiful and remarkable. Sarracenia leucophylla, with its variations of white, red and green patterning, is the most beautiful of all. When backlit, it’s like looking through tiny stained-glass windows.

Sarracenias have adapted to living in acidic, anaerobic soils, totally devoid of nutrients. In other words, bogs. However, plants must have nitrogen and phosphorous to live. In a bog, the only nitrogen and phosphorous is flying or crawling around in the form of insects. These plants have ingeniously evolved into insect traps. Their leaves have morphed into tubes. They’ve developed hoods or lids on the tubes to prevent rain water from filling up the tubes. The lids also provide little landing platforms for potential prey. Later, the lids keep the prey from escaping.

To attract insects, most plants use nectar, color and fragrance only in their flowers. To attract insects, sarracenias use nectar, color and fragrance mainly in their tubes. Lured to the tubes by intoxicating fragrance and beautiful color, the largest quantity of nectar is at the throat of the tube. This is the moment of danger for the insect. They may sip the nectar and be able to fly away or they may slip on the waxy lip and fall down into the tube. The nectar disorients the insect and may contain a paralytic. Once they fall, there is little they can do. The fine downward facing hairs on the inside of the tube are too slick to crawl back up on. If they try to fly up towards the light, they hit the lid and fall back down into the narcotic soup. The insect’s nutrients are broken down by enzymes and then absorbed by the tubes.

A friend gave me a poster about carnivorous plants titled “They don’t eat their pollinators.” I felt this was misleading. The title of the poster should have been “They don’t eat their pollinators right away.” I consulted my friend Jerry Addington of Courting Frogs Nursery. Jerry spends his days hybridizing sarracenias, or “carnies” as he calls them. He has given me some beautiful plants over the years. He thought about my question and said “Yes, they do eat their pollinators, though after the flower’s been pollinated.” In the spring, the flowers come up first and then the traps come up a month or so later. They are clever plants.

When I walk by them on the deck, sometimes I can hear buzzing. I look down into the tubes. If it’s a trapped bee, I let it out. if it’s a trapped wasp, I leave it — most wasps can chew their way out anyway. This makes little holes in the tubes for hapless ants to crawl into.

Unfortunately, these resilient plants have suffered from human activity. From the draining of their bogs for development, road-side pesticide use, horticultural collection, and the prevention of the periodic fires they need to keep their bogs open, they have lost 98 percent of their original habitat.

As they are endangered, it is vital to buy only nursery-propagated plants.

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Read more about this artist’s work: Abundant Future