104 THE PLANT WOKLD. 



DOES THE CATCH FLY GRASS CATCH FLIES. 



Bv C. F. Saunders. 



N low (lamp grounds of our southern states grows a grass (Zt'ty'.svV/ or 

 Iloinalocenchrus lenticularix) with round, fJat spikelets, edged 

 with strong teeth-like bristles — a combination somewhat on the 

 plan of a steel trap. Frederick Pursh, who was one of the pioneers of 

 botanical researches in this country, and wdio, in 1814, published a 

 work on the plants of North America, has left a record, an interesting 

 observation concernino- this plant. He savs: "This sinoujar and 

 elegant grass I found on the islands of Roanoak River in North 

 Carolina, and observed it catching flies in the same manner as Dlonica 

 mi(8c!j)ula ; the valves of the corolla are nearly of the same structure as 

 the leaves of that plant. I communicated specimens with this parti- 

 cular circumstance to Dr. B. S. Barton of Philadelphia, who has made 

 mention of it in a paper on the irritability of plants." 



Professor Gray, writing his Manual a generation later, seems not 

 to have observed this curious phenomenon himself, for in his descrip- 

 tion he remarks cautiously of the glumes, ".w/r/ to close and catch 

 flies." Still a generation later, comes the Illustrated Flora" of Britton 

 and Brown, who, regardless of the testimony of Pursh, say nothing 

 whatever of the plant's trapping propensities. 



It would be interesting to know what may be said on the subject 

 ])y modern observers. Can any reader of The Plant World who 

 knows the grass in its home, confirm Pursh's recorded observation? 

 Philadelphia. 



PRIMULA MISTASSINICA. 



By E. J. Hill. 



N 1889 I found this plant on the tra])pean rocks by the northwest 

 side of Presque Isle, Marquette, Michigan. These rocks form a 

 table-like mass raised a few feet above the level of Lake Superior. 

 They are eruptive in character, of a very dark or nearly l)lack mag- 

 nesian-serpentine, variegated in places by narrow veins and thin lines 

 of calcite and other light colored minerals, being a complex of several 

 ingredients. They weather to a very roug-h surface aboundinor in small 

 cavities or hollows, and are mostly bare of vegetation. In some of 



