304 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



S. Williams, Upper Holloway, has sent out some 

 fine species which are remarkable for the brilliant 

 colouring of the pitchers. 



Although these plants have been pretty generally 

 •cultivated in nurseries and Botanic Gardens, they 

 have not found their way into very many private 

 establishments. The tropical temperature required 

 for their successful cultivation may in some measure 

 account for this ; and as they are not very useful 

 for home decoration, they are generally put aside 

 for plants that more readily adapt themselves to 

 this purpose. 



We recently grew some small plants about a foot 

 high and carrying a dozen pitchers. They were 

 planted in small hanging baskets, suspended from 

 the dining-room gasalier, and proved both novel and 

 attractive for table decoration. 



There is always a small quantity of fluid in the 

 pitcher when the lid opens, and at this stage it is 

 most attractive to insects. Its digestive powers are 

 then most apparent. Ants, which prove indigestible 

 later, are pretty well absorbed at this stage, as are 

 flies, beetles, and snails, very little of them remain- 

 ing after a few weeks' immersion in the secretion. 

 I have found the pitcher a most excellent ant-trap. 

 The house in which I grow the plants was swarming 

 with Demerara ants, bat by the time a few dozen 

 pitchers had grown the number of the insects was 

 considerably reduced. On emptying some of the 

 pitchers I found the remains of hundreds of ants in 

 them. While I find the ants still increasing in the 

 other plant-stoves, they are nearly cleared out of 

 the house occupied by the pitcher-plants. 



Inquiries occasionally appear in horticultural jour- 

 nals as to the best manner of getting rid of ants. 

 I have already recommended in the Journal of Horti- 

 culture that pitcher-plants should be cultivated both 

 in the stoves and in the cool-houses, the North 

 American Pitcher-plant, Sarracenia purpurea, being 

 especially suitable for the latter. I have found them 



