Yellow Pitcherplants (Sarracenia flava) are easily recognized by their waist-high green trumpets or pitchers which dominate pitcherplant savannas during the summer. The trumpets which are actually modified leaves are pitfall traps filled with digestive fluids into which insects slip to their death. By summer’s end, grasses and wildflowers steal the glory of the trumpets which are now worn and ragged. Without fire, the pitcherplant savannas would be overcome by woody vegetation. In early spring, before new leaves emerge, each pitcherplant sends up a single tall yellow flower as described by flava which means yellow.
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