This is one of those places I’ve always wanted to see. An anomaly as far as color forms of Sarracenia flava go in Florida. I’m speaking about the all red flavas of Blackwater State Forest.
S. flava var atropurpurea, according to the literature, is mainly a Carolina plant. However, Blackwater State forest is home to one of most amazing populations of this color form in existence. I don’t know where I heard this, but someone once told me that they believe these plants were moved here from the Carolinas many years ago. Are they native to this site or introduced… I don’t know for sure. It seems a bit odd that this one bog is loaded with this plant… however, regardless if their origin, it was a sight to behold.
As you can tell by the photos, this form is abundant. There were also plants that were clearly of hybrid origin, but they were few… the bog remained mainly red and yellow! The color of these plants was so striking… deep crimson red from top to bottom. Even in mid August the color was still vibrant and strong.
One other comment. Many plants in cultivation have been labeled atropurpurea, but really arent. There are may red tube (flava var rubricorpora) plants that turn completely red in late summer and can be confused as atropurpurea. Unlike the redtube plants, when these leaves open, the leaf is completely red… period.
As mentioned in the previous post (I think), Jay and I spent this day with Randy and Marie. While Randy is a long time Sarraceniaphile, Marie is pretty new to this. She was very impressed with all of this and decided that she wanted to shoot a video about this bog, and wanted me to be the host! So here is a Youtube link to her video. Sadly, the when she zoomed in for close ups that camera didn’t focus, but its cool none the less.
And so ended day 4. Back to Crestview we went for a shower before going to Randy’s for dinner, yep, you guessed it, BBQ! Beef Ribs and Pulled pork. Not to mention a few icy drinks made using is solar powered blender!
CJM
Zone 6b 
Hey Carl Thanx for the new post on flava atropurpurea. it helps me understnad and ID them, better Lois
Hi Carl, hope you are keeping well and many thanks for these great posts.
I noticed your comments regarding this unusual stand of atro’s.
Tell me are there any rubricorps in this Blackwater stand? If not, how close would the nearest rubricorps be?
Cheers
Don Gray
Don, everything is red… Inside, outside… Everything. Now I can’t say what they look like in the spring. But new pitchers I saw in August were red. As for the nearest rubricorporas. I’d say 100kms or more. But I can’t be sure. All the red tubes I’ve seen are much farther south.
Ta for the update Carl……I think it would be interesting to find pics of these Blackwater plants soon after opening……The atro I have here in Auckland looks very different between opening time in spring to closing time late summer….The colour completely infuses to red including the mouth, column and inner hood by mid to late summer…This plant is difficult to recognise between these seasons…Do you know of any pics of the Blackwater atros taken in spring?
Don,
As far as other photos… I’m sure there as some out there… but I don’t know of any.
And sorry Carl, I forgot to ask, when these atro’s first open in spring what is the colour of their mouths?
Ta
Don
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Ok…Thanks for the update Bud..
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though
you relied on the video to make your point. You clearly know what youre
talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to
your site when you could be giving us something informative
to read?
The video was really a bonus… I’m not a video maker really.. it just so happened that Marie made a video while we were out there! 🙂