Sarracenia x catesbaei THE GIANT
Sarracenia x catesbaei 'THE GIANT' is something special, because it is huge. Tall, yes, but look at the size of that pitcher mouth and lid! It's are the size of my hand! I'm guessing this a triploid, because it is HUGE and does not ever flower.
Visitors to our greenhouse usually just go pass the ''normal size'' THE GIANT plants in the shop. But when they're confronted with the mother plant in the CP collection they almost always take one home. I still don't know are they intimidated or awstruck by the momma? In any case, this catesbaei is also fully frost hardy.
Catesbaei is a naturally occuring hybrid between S. purpurea and S. flava. In the wild it can be seen where the ranges of the parent species overlap, from Virginia to Florida. It grows in sandy bogs, wet seeps and pocosins (savanna type vegetation of US Gulf Coast). It is vigorous, fast growing and tends to form large colonies, but is not clumpy like S. rubra. But like with any cross, every seedling is unique and can be something special.
Catesbaei is prized for its upright and stout pitchers with large fan-shaped hoods. The colour and winter hardiness of each clone can vary a lot. Flavas are winter hardy, but come in 5 main color variations, plus the antho-free forms. Purpurea has two subspecies, a variety, antho-free forms and a closely related, allopatric species. This makes for very very very many possibilities of how exactly a catesbaei looks - and yes, all the possible combinations are still called a catesbaei.
In any case, you can get 'THE GIANT' in M size for now.