OCCURRENCE OF NATURAL HYBRIDS IN GENUS SARRACENIA. 155 
ON THE OCCURRENCE OF NATURAL HYBRIDS IN THE 
GENUS SARRACENIA. 
By Professor J. M. Macrarnang, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
Every cultivator of the genus Sarracenia is familiar with the fact, that 
many and even complex artificial crosses have been made between the 
seven species in cultivation, since the time when the late Dr. Moore 
exhibited his first hybrid plants in 1874 at the International Congress in 
Florence. 
Large and complex though the flowers typically are, they are so 
perfectly adapted for cross-pollination that one might expect to find 
natural hybrids, where two or more parents grow together. But such 
will most likely occur, if the period of blooming for any two species is 
coeval or approximately so, and if the flowers are so coloured as to attract 
insects in common. Some details regarding these points have already 
been published by the writer,* who has had frequent opportunities for 
studying “the American pitcher-plants’’ in their native haunts during 
the past fifteen years. 
It may at once be said that abundant and ever-increasing evidence is 
accumulating, to prove that the species of Sarracenia hybridise in their 
native haunts. Further, some hybridise so frequently, and develop so 
many hybrid plants, that at least one of these has been mistaken for, 
and described as, a new species. The first evidence in line with the above 
was secured by the writer in June of 1893, when in company with one of 
his students, Mr. W. Davis, he noticed two plants growing by a “ branch” 
or stream in the savannas about three miles south of Wilmington, N.C. 
Their exact similarity to the artificial hybrid between S. flava and 
S. purpurea at once suggested such a parentage. The first-named parent 
was in striking evidence around, but slight examination of the surround- 
ing ground revealed also a considerable number of S. purpurea, which is 
often obscured on first look by surrounding herbage. The two hybrid 
Specimiens were removed, and later on demonstrated their parentage by 
their floral structure and colour. Proof was thus secured that the 
artificial hybrid Sarracenia Stevensi, with the above parentage, had 
probably often been produced in nature. 
If we may now continue the history of the same hybrid, it should next 
be said that Elliott described a supposed new species in 1824 under the 
name S. Catesbei, from leaves which had been forwarded to him by 
Dr. Macbride of Chesterfield, 8.C. Trusting to Elhott’s short and 
defective description, the writer, as well as Small, considered this to be a 
type which is represented in most herbaria and botanic gardens, and which 
the writer has dealt with in the above-named article. But through the 
kind interest of Mr. Rea, Curator of the Charleston Museum, Elliott’s 
original specimen was studied by me about eighteen months ago, and was 
at once recognised to be a rather large leaf of the same hybrid parentage 
* Bot. Contrib. Univ. Penn. vol. ii. (1904), p. 426. 
