Sarracenia purpurea

Purple pitcherplant

Family: Sarraceniaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Purple pitcherplant is a naturalized perennial found in northern coastal California, including Mendocino and Del Norte Counties, and Butterfly Valley in the northern Sierra Nevada, inhabiting acidic seeps, marshes, and bogs at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering from May to July, this distinctive plant produces deep purple-red flowers 2 to 6 centimeters long with pale green and dark red-purple coloration. Growing with ascending leaves 20 centimeters tall that range from green-yellow to deep red and dramatically enlarge toward their tips, it forms unique pitcher-shaped structures. Its leaves are modified into distinctive tubular traps with a color gradient from green to deep red, creating a carnivorous plant adaptation. The fruit is spherical to ovoid, approximately 1 to 2.5 centimeters long with five distinct lobes.

Habitat: Acidic seeps, marshes, bogs

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: NCo (Mendocino Co.), KR (Del Norte Co.), n SNH (Butterfly Valley), possibly elsewhere

California counties: Plumas

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.