Pale Pitcher Plant

Description:

The pitchers have a pale yellow-green color and the flower petals are creamy to yellow-white. The plant's leaves have evolved into a funnel in order to trap insects, digesting their prey with proteases and other enzymes. The insects are attracted by a nectar-like secretion on the lip of pitchers, as well as a combination of color and scent. Slippery footing at the pitchers' rim, aided in at least one species by a narcotic drug lacing the nectar, causes insects to fall inside, where they die and are digested by the plant as a nutrient source.

Habitat:

The Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge is part of the Gulf Coast Refuge Complex, which includes Grand Bay NWR and Bon Secour NWR. The refuge was established in 1975 under authority of the Endangered Species Act to protect the critically endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes and their unique, and itself endangered, wet pine savanna habitat.

Notes:

C.L. Dees Wildlife Trail, Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge http://www.fws.gov/mississippisandhillcr...