So I have this pitcher plant that I’m very fond of. It’s a little potbellied variety called Sarracenia. It’s a native of North America and can even be found in certain parts of Indiana, like me. As far as I can tell there aren’t any pitcher plants native to the UK. Sundews and bladderworts yes but a quick Google search didn’t find any pitcher plants that aren’t coming from a nursery some place. I think mine came from a place in Denmark called Lammehave or something like that but I digress.
My pitcher plant has aphids. They are a specific kind that feed on pitcher plants and make their ‘pitchers’ all malformed and useless. I can kill them off quite easily but it ‘bugs’ me that they’re here at all. I’ve had it for nearly a year and somehow, thousands of miles from where any Pitcher Plant parasite has a right to be, here they are munching down on my favorite plant! What little I know about the parasite to host relationship is that they’re usually quite particular about which meal they will accept. And if they came from the nursery they should have manifested themselves before now, I’d think.
I guess what I’m asking is just how far away from the environment that spawned it does a quiet little plant have to be to avoid a random breeze blowing a single aphid in? I imagine the little bugger was delighted to find her favorite food sitting on a windowsill 3,828 miles from her ol’ stomping grounds. Imagine the stories she’d tell her 100s (from the looks of it) progeny about the great jet stream crossing of 2017. Well she would if I wasn’t dousing said plant with a dose of a natural deterrent that seems to have evolved to turn away everything with a nose. Or a spiracle in this case I guess. Hang in there little guy!
Not my plant but the right species…