Sarracenia

Introduction to the Sarracenia Deconfusifier

The Sarracenia Deconfusifier arose out of an attempt to make sense of the various clones of Sarracenia grown in the UK. A lot of collections use accession numbers to identify particular clones, but they do not use the same numbers, so a certain amount of research is required to work out whether a plant seen in a collection under one number is actually the same plant as seen in another collection under another number.
To help untangle the confusion in my own mind, I started to collate the various growlists available, and from this was born the Deconfusifier!
I make no claim to perfection, it is a work in progress. Most of the accession numbers refer to clonally propagated plants, but some numbers refer to collections of seed. These have been noted where the information is known. I have cross-referenced clones where I have the required information - it is probable that the missing connections exceed the recorded ones - any further information is very welcome.
This may or may not be a useful exercise.

As a matter of curiosity, it has also produced a partial 'snapshot' of the genus as currently grown in the UK (though there are a great many recent or rare clones that have not yet made it to the various lists).

As a mildly obsessive person, I would happily extend the Deconfusifier to cover collections throughout Europe - I simply don't have the information available to hand at present.
I would also be quite happy to spend some time cataloguing the genus as grown in the USA, but (perhaps fortunately) time and finances are preventing me from doing so!

I should also say something about hybrids. Where a botanical name has been given to a hybrid, that name covers all the various crosses, back crosses and subsequent generations of the hybrid. For example, the name Sarracenia x catesbaei covers all hybrids that include S.flava and S.purpurea only in their ancestry. On this site, I use the * convention to record this. Sarracenia x catesbaei under this notation , is written Sarracenia (flava * purpurea). If the exact parentage or pedigree is known, then I use the 'x' symbol. Examples from the collection here would include:
Sarracenia x catesbaei H-40-AP , (flava * purpurea), = S.(flava veinless form x purpurea hetrophylla) ;
Sarracenia x catesbaei SX-57-AS , (flava * purpurea), = S.((flava x purpurea) x flava) .
The process of bringing the whole list into line with this notation will take a little time!

In brief, therefore, it is not perfect. Entries in the Deconfusifier consist of a series of "fields" of data, separated by full stops. They are made in the general form:

Accession number Name .Description of clone (source/previous growers) .Wild location of clone if known .W (Wild collected plant) WS (wild collected seed) .Other accession numbers for the same plant .

I have photos of many of the plants in the Deconfusifier, and as time allows they will be linked to their accession number.
Accession numbers follow the numbers used by the original grower. They usually start with a letter to denote the species - then a number to identify the particular clone.
On the end of this I have added - two initials(usually) to identify the grower whose accession number it is.
Special thanks to: Paul and Jackie Gardner (-PJG), Mike King (-MK), Aidan Selwyn (-AS), Steve Taverner (-ST), Phil Wilson (-PW) and a host of other people who have produced lists that preserve a lot of useful information. Without their efforts, none of this would be possible. Thanks also for allowing me to visit and photograph your collections, often repeatedly, and still smiling benignly as I bend pitchers, ask endless questions and generally get in the way.
The first National Collection of Sarracenia was formed by John Ainsworth, and I still haven't managed to trace information on all of his plants - any further details are very welcome on the missing numbers!

So this is the Sarracenia Deconfusifier .