Most Sarracenia varieties produce beautiful and fascinating coloration to visually attract and direct insects towards the trap opening. These colors intensify in bright sun, and mostly appear as venation running up-and-down traps. Some species grow white or translucent windows imbedded on their hoods and traps to further disorient insects.

Bugs near the trap mistake the clear window for an opening and they attempt to fly through it—big mistake.  Luckily for us, when we accidentally walk into a clean glass door we just injure our pride, and perhaps our host will recommend that we start drinking water instead of punch. The bugs don’t have it so good; they collide with the window and fall down into the trap, where they are either drown in collected rainwater, or are dissolved by the pitcher plant’s digestive enzymes.

The hood of the trap is a broad leaf-like protrusion that shades the opening of the trap and acts as a landing pad for flying insects. Under the hood, glands produce sweet smelling lure; conveniently, this is directly above the deadly mouth, so any bug attracted to this location is likely to fall right onto the dinner plate.

Additional nectar trails are produced along the length of the pitcher, to attract crawling insects, and draw them up from the soil to the mouth.

Pitcher plant nectar includes an intoxicating narcotic called coniine that causes paralysis and death in insects that drink too much of it. The physical effects on bugs make them more prone to drunkly stumbling into the mouth of the trap.

Insects that find themselves on the hood of a North American pitcher plant trap are further directed towards the mouth by thin, sharp hairs that cover its underside. Bugs cannot easily move against the grain of the hairs because of their sharp tips, so they follow the grain, which leads right into the open mouth of the trap. The hairs themselves are also slick, so any insects trying to grasp them for a foothold will quickly lose their footing.

About midway down some pitcher traps is a second round of downward-pointing hairs to prevent stranded bugs that have fallen in from crawling out.

Sarracenia get their common name, pitcher plant, from the overall structure and trapping mechanism of these highly specialized leaves. In most species, the pitcher is narrow and cylindrical, tapering towards the soil and widening towards the hungry mouth. After falling in, flying insects can’t simply buzz out of these cylinders because the beating of their wings causes a vortex within the narrow space that makes flying impossible. Crawling insects find gripping on to the slick, convex surface inside the tube futile. With no way escape, they become lunch. Note; the author has seen, on rare occasion, insect ingenuity – instead of climbing out of traps, desperate insects will chew a hole from inside the pitcher from which they can squeeze through to freedom.

Some pitchers, like those on S. purpurea, eschew the tall, narrow tube for a squat, wide shape. This helps to collect rainwater that drowns prey and assists with digestion (see next section on digestion).

Most North American pitcher plants secret digestive enzymes and acids that dissolve soft tissues of prey for absorption. Other species, like Sarracenia purpurea (the purple pitcher plant) collect rainwater in their traps. This water drowns prey and hosts bacteria that breaks down insects into a soup from which nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are absorbed.

North American pitcher plants happily grow in a mix of 70% sphagnum peat moss to 30% horticultural sand. Alternatively, give a 80% peat, 20% perlite mix a try. Avoid higher levels of perlite as it’s slightly alkaline, and Sarracenia prefer a more acidic mix. Sphagnum peat moss, horticultural sand, and perlite can be easily purchased online via the provided links, or found at garden supply stores and The Home Depot. Avoid regular potting soil as it will burn the root system and kill the plant.

Four or five inch, drained plastic pots or glazed ceramics are ideal for a single immature plant. Mature plants do best in 2+ gallon pots with a diameter of around 8 inches. Remember, Sarracenia produce new growth points off of their rhizome, so they’ll fill in even these larger pots. You’ll want to divide and transplant mature plants every few years to keep them happy and your collection growing! Set pots in water saucers to maintain soil moisture.

Use distilled or reverse osmosis water. This can be inexpensively purchased in most grocery stores, or you can invest in a reverse osmosis (RO) filtration system that hooks up to a sink (bonus – this also provides great drinking water for humans and pets). Keep the plant in a water tray and fill this tray to maintain damp-to-wet soil year round.

Sarracenia enjoy full-to-part sun. Brighter conditions will promote red coloration in the pitchers, genotype-permitting. I’ve grow them with great success in direct, sunny Southern California light.

Remember, these plants grow naturally in nutrient poor soils – a major reason why they evolved traps to catch insects as their source of nutrients. Outdoor plants that ravage local insect populations definitely don’t require fertilization. Greenhouse growers with less prey to rely on, can use a diluted orchid fertilizer for foliar-feeding (applying it only to the pitchers of the plant) once or twice a month. This can also be a great way to grow baby pitcher plants into mature plants in as little as three or four years.