10 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [oCT. 17, 



the studies of Darwin and were naturally directed in an exper- 

 imental way towards the plant's digestive powers, and furnished 

 little more than an outline of its actual predatory habits. Other 

 local accounts appear to have been of a somewhat exaggerated 

 character in regard to both the size and the quantity of i^rey 

 that has been taken. On the other hand ideas of the life habits 

 of the plant can hardly be regarded as accurate based upon 

 hot-house specimens that have become more or less artificialized, 

 and have lacked the kind and quantity of usual food elements. 

 It has seemed accordingly in the case of a plant as local as 

 Diouaea, especially desirable to determine more accurately the 

 degree to which the sjiecialized traps are active in providing 

 food, (2), the kind of material collected, and (3), the 

 ways and means followed in the collecting process. Results 

 thus obtained might, if noteworthy, j^rove of value in directing 

 lines of study in this peculiar branch of plant physiology. . 



Dionaea is almost exclusively confined to the Savannahs 

 directly eastward of Wilmington, a tract of j^erhaps a dozen 

 miles in length. In this tract the plant is plentiful only at 

 special points, as a mile east of Wrightville, a few rods south of 

 the shell road. Here, as an instance, have been counted as 

 many as fifty plants to a square j^ard. The supply, however, is 

 in general a limited one, and is decreasing year b}' jear, mainly, 

 it is said, on account of the great increase of forest fires and the 

 subsequent clearing up of the land. The plant's northern range 

 appears to be sharply drawn at the Cape Fear river.* West of 

 Wilmington the plant occurs but is said to be rare. Southward 

 it is still more uncommon ; it has been taken by Mr. Walter 

 Hoxie, of Beaufort, S. C, on Fripp's Island, on Coxspur Island 

 off the Georgia coast, and once at the head of Mosquito Lagoon 

 below St. Augustine. 



The home of the plant is in the typical Savannah, rough sedgy 

 meadow land sprinkled with scanty yellow pines, clumps of 

 stunted beeches broken here and there by shallow sphagnum 

 pools. The pools are quite characteristic of the region, occupy- 

 ing depressions often not more than a yard across and usually 

 but a few inches in depth. The edges are shelving, denuded, 

 often abrupt, showing in section a layer of surface black mould 

 above yellow-white sand. Grasses and sedges grow^ down to 

 the brink and bend over, often drooping their blades into the 

 shelving basin below. It is at the edges of the grass clumps 

 that Dionaea frequently occurs, often displaying its trap leaves 

 on the bare margin of the basin. This position, though apj^ar- 



* Wood and McCarthy, Wilmington Flora, Raloigh, 1887. 



