Question
QUESTION: Ok. This is going to sound really weird, and will probably be impossible to answer, but I really need help with this.
I have an albino Darlingtonia seedling that has just germinated. From reading and researching, I have found out that it has approximately one week to live before it runs out of energy that has been stored in its seed, and it dies because it has no green chlorophyll to photosynthesise. I also read that it is possibly to keep albino plants alive by trimming off the tips of the leaves, and dipping them in sucrose (sugar) solution to keep sugar running through the plants vascular system.
I can do this with it's cotleydon leaves, until it produces its first pitcher, but what then? Can the pitchers from darlingtonia absorb sugar? Would I be able to keep it alive by feeding it sugar into its pitchers? Also, how much sugar per water does it need to keep it alive?

Thankyou!

ANSWER: Hi Katherine,

The term albino has a different meaning among horticulturists than among geneticists.  When talking about plants, albino refers to a normally highly pigmented plant that lacks red and yellow pigments.  The plant will still be green because chlorophyll is green, but it just won't have any other colors.  For instance, there is an albino form of the northern purple pitcher plant.  Normally it will be red with lots of purple veins and yellow highlights.  But the albino form is green throughout.  Another term for albino is all green.

So I'm not sure if you're talking about a plant being all green or being completely white.  A completely white plant is actually one that was grown in complete darkness.  White asparagus is grown like this.  It's actually a normal asparagus that was continuously covered up with soil whenever it tried to poke through the soil.

So if your seedlings are completely white, then they're not receiving enough sunlight.  I'll need a bit more information on how you're caring for your seedlings.  I germinate my seeds either outdoors in partial sunlight or indoors under fluorescent lights.  I don't recall ever seeing a completely white seedling, and I don't have experience in using sugar water to nurture them.  Could you provide a bit more details on how your germinated your seeds (whether you stratified them or usd GA3) and how you're currently caring for your seedlings?  This will help me determine what's going on and recommend a course of action.

Good growing!
Jacob Farin

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sorry, I was rushing a bit with my question!

The seedling in question is pure white, so far as can be seen. It's stem, and first two leaves (cotleydons) have no red or green pigment that can be seen using the human eye, or a hand lens. As it grows it could turn out to be only partially albino, or variegated, but it looks completely white at the current time.

It comes from a batch of seeds from a plant which IS NOT wild. All seeds I have are form the same batch, and so far all the others exhibit green and red colouring, as  per normal, this one is completely white. It is in the same soil and light with the same temperature, humidity and water levels as the others. It came from a normal looking seed.

Answer
You might not like my answer on this one.  In this case, since all the other seeds are normal, you might want to let your albino seedling go.  It could be a genetic fluke that caused it to not produce any chlorophyll at this stage of growth.  If this grew in the wild, it wouldn't survive.  Since you have it in cultivation, you could either let it go or see about nurturing it.  However, my guess is that you wouldn't survive very long after it reaches a certain size.  While a plant might be able to absorb some glucose through their leaves, it will come to a point where the need for glucose will exceed what it can absorb through its leaves.  Once it reaches that stage, it'll collapse from insufficient energy.  

If you want to experiment with this seedling, use a dilute solution of corn syrup and water.  Corn syrup contains glucose, which is what plants  create for energy via photosynthesis.  The concentration has to be fairly weak.  If it's too strong, the plant will loose too much moisture and burn from the strong osmotic pressure.  Since I've never done this before, I can only speculate on using 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of water.  I've based this on what we use when we apply fertilizer to the leaves of plants.  

So if you're the adventurous type, you could give it a whirl.  Otherwise, I recommend letting this seedling go.  It might be too much work with very low probability of success.

Good growing!
Jacob Farin