GREEN PITCHERPLANT 



Sarracenia oreophila (Kearney) Wherry 



Green pitcherplant, the most primitive of the eastern species, was apparently first collected 

 along the inner margin of the coastal plain in Taylor County, Georgia, but it later proved 

 to occur chiefly in the Appalachian Mountains region of northeastern Alabama. It has been 

 found thus far in a number of stream valleys in Cherokee, De Kalb, Jackson, and Marshall 

 Counties, and may be considerably more widespread* Unlike most species, it grows in allu- 

 vial sands and gravels on stream banks, rather than in bogs or swamps. The soil reaction, 

 however, is rather intensely acid. 



In Alabama the Cretaceous peneplain was not uplifted high enough above sea level for 

 the climate to become very much cooler, so that little increase in hardiness was necessary 

 to enable plants to survive there. The ancestral home of this pitcherplant may accordingly 

 be inferred to have been essentially where it now occurs. Of all the species, it has been the 

 least successful in colonizing the Coastal Plain, its seeds having apparently reached that 

 province only after it had become too conservative to spread there. 



* While this article was in page proof, and after the map was engraved, an additional station for it was discovered 

 in Elmore County, in central Alabama. 



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