YELLOW PITCHERPLANT 



Sarracenia flava Linnaeus 



The yellow pitcherplant developed farther east than its relative, the pale pitcherplant, and 

 in the course of the Tertiary uplift and erosion which resulted in the development of the 

 southern highlands it managed to survive in a number of places in North Carolina. As the sea 

 gradually withdrew from the old shore line, leaving new land open for occupation by plants, 

 the seeds of this species traveled down various river systems in North and South Carolina and 

 Georgia, and started colonies in the Coastal Plain. Lateral spreading from these colonies also 

 occurred, and the species reached on the one hand, nearly to the Alabama River, and on the 

 other, to the James River in Virginia. 



Like most plants with such a geologic history, this pitcherplant gradually lost its aggres- 

 siveness, and by middle Tertiary time its colonies apparently ceased to expand further. 

 Accordingly, although it grows in abundance in moist meadows and depressions in pinelands, 

 it has never been able to enter lower peninsular Florida, which emerged from the sea only 

 toward the close of the Tertiary. 



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