WHITETOP PITCHERPLANT 



Sarracenia drummondii Croom 



The evolutionary changes which resulted in the development of the shov^y red-flow^ered 

 Sarracenia jonesii from a rather inconspicuous green-flowered ancestor did not come to an 

 end with that species, but continued along several lines. The tendency toward increased size 

 and coloration reached a culmination in whitetop pitcherplant, the showiest of our species. 

 The common name selected for it refers to the predominance of white in the hood. 



Development of this pitcherplant evidently took place somewhere in the headwaters of 

 the Alabama River system. The Tertiary mountain-making exterminated it from its ancestral 

 home, but seeds traveled downstream and soon colonized the Coastal Plain. Spreading laterally 

 from this river valley, it migrated a short distance westward into Mississippi and somewhat 

 farther toward the east, into the western extension of Florida. It also formed two isolated 

 colonies, one in Madison County, Florida, the other in Sumter County, Georgia. Reports of 

 its occurrence farther northeast seem to be based on misidentification of other species. 



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