Cuar. XVIIL] CONCLUSION. 365 
were carefully examined, but none could be found. What 
are we to infer from these facts? Did the three species just 
named, like their close allies, the several species of Utricu- 
laria, aboriginally possess bladders on their rhizomes, which 
they afterwards lost, acquiring in their place utriculiferous 
leaves? In support of this view it may be urged that the 
bladders of Genlisea filiformis appear from their small size and 
from the fewness of their quadrifid processes to be tending 
towards abortion; but why has not this species acquired 
utriculiferous leaves, like its congeners ? 
ConcLuston.—It has now been shown that many species of 
Utricularia and of two closely allied genera, inhabiting the 
most distant parts of the world—Kurope, Africa, India, the 
Malay Archipelago, Australia, North and South America— 
are admirably adapted for capturing by two methods small 
aquatic or terrestrial animals, and that they absorb the pro- 
ducts of their decay. = 
Ordinary plants of the higher classes procure the requisite 
inorganic elements from the soil by means of their roots, and 
absorb carbonic acid from the atmosphere by means of their 
leaves and stems. But we have seen in a previous part of 
this work that there is a class of plants which digest and 
afterwards absorb animal matter, namely, all the Droseracewx, 
Pinguicula, and, as discovered by Dr. Hooker, Nepenthes, 
and to this class other species will almost certainly soon be 
added. These plants can dissolve matter out of certain 
vegetable substances, such as pollen, seeds, and bits of leaves. 
No doubt their glands likewise absorb the salts of ammonia 
brought to them by the rain. It has also been shown that 
some other plants can absorb ammonia by their glandular 
hairs ; and these will profit by that brought to them by the 
rain. There is a second class of plants which, as we have 
just seen, cannot digest, but absorb the products of the 
decay of the animals which they capture, namely, Utricularia* 
and its close allies; and from the excellent observations of 
[* The late Professor de Bary grown in water swarming with 
showed me at Strasburg two dried 
specimens of Utricularia (vulgaris ?) 
which clearly demonstrated the ad- 
vantage which this plant derives from 
captured insects. One had been 
minute crustaceans, the other in clean 
water ; the difference in size between 
the “fed” and the “starved” plants 
was most striking.—F. D.] 
