430 Mr. Bentuam on the Heliamphora nutans, 
cell, forming a hollow tube, in which in the dried state there appears to be 
more or less of congealed matter, probably fluid when fresh. These secreting 
hairs are somewhat conical in Heliamphora, very long and slender, but with 
the same structure in Sarracenia purpurea. 
Notwithstanding several memoirs which have been already published on 
the Sarracenia, it does not appear that any course of observation and experi- 
ment on the living plant has ever been closely and carefully followed up with 
a view to ascertaining the precise nature and functions of the abovementioned 
very distinct portions of these singular pitchers. They are constantly observed 
with more or less of an aqueous fluid in them, which is generally supposed to 
be chiefly, if not entirely, water derived from rains and dews, a circumstance 
not at all borne out by the structure as it appears in the dried state. The lower 
portion is evidently contrived to produce copious secretions ; the central appa- 
rently smooth portion, often covered with an infinity of minute glands, appears 
destined to some important function in the economy of the leaf, and the form 
of the opening appears but ill contrived for the mere purpose of collecting 
rains and dews. One effect of the singular clothing of the orifice is known to 
be the retaining such insects as may venture within it, and some have even 
gone so far as, on that account, to consider these plants as carnivorous; but 
surely, if killing the insects were the main object of this apparatus, it would 
meet with better success than the imprisoning some half a dozen flies or beetles 
during the whole season the leaf lasts. It were therefore much to be wished, 
that American botanists, who have opportunities of observing these plants 
under those circumstances which are natural to them, would carefully ascer- 
tain the state of the different parts of the pitcher, the nature and amount of 
any secretions, and any other phenomena that may take place at different 
times of the day and of the season, at various ages of the plant, and under 
various states of the atmosphere, which alone can enable us to found any con- 
jectures on its physiological functions. 
The scape of Heliamphora, instead of being one-flowered, as in Sarracenia, 
bears a loose raceme of from two to six nodding flowers, 
