INTRODUCTION 



The purpose of this book is to give an historical review and sum- 

 mary of our present knowledge about the carnivorous or insectivorous 

 plants, the former being the better term. Of these there are about 450 

 or more species, representing 15 genera, belonging, aside from the 

 fungi, to six families, indicated in the present table (Table i), to- 

 gether with their geographic distribution. 



Table i 



Family and genus 



No. OF 



SPECIES 



Geographic distribution 



S 

 9 



6S 



90 



Sarraceniaceae 

 Heliamphora 

 Sarracenia 



Darlingtonia 



{Chrysamphora) 

 Nepenthaceae 



Nepentfies 

 Droseraceae 



Dionaea 



Aldrovanda 



Drosophyllum 



Drosera 

 ByUidaceae 



Byhlis 

 Cephalotaceae 



Cephalolus 

 Lentibulariaceae 



Pingidcula 



Utricularia 



Biovularia 



Polypompholyx 



Genlisea 

 Fungi (various genera 

 with trapping mech- 

 anisms) 



Roridula, formerly regarded as carnivorous, has now been shown 

 by me not to be so, and is excluded from the above list. The ''man- 

 eating tree of Madagascar" must at present also be excluded, since the 

 evidence of its existence is elusive. 



The table shows that the carnivorous plants are divisible into two 

 groups, one lot {Sarraceniaceae to Cephalotaceae) belonging to the Chori- 

 petalae, the rest to the Sympetalae, with personate flowers. This wide 

 separation is a remarkable indication that the carnivorous habit has 

 arisen among the higher plants at two points at the fewest, (as well as 

 among the fungi), in the course of evolution. The methods of captur- 

 ing prey are in some measure common to the two lots, the greatest 

 height of specialization having been reached by Dionaea and Aldro- 



30 

 275 



2 (4) 

 10 



20 or more. 



British Guiana; Venezuela. 



Eastern N. America: Labrador to S. E. United 



States of America. 

 N. California and S. Oregon. 



Eastern Tropics to Ceylon and Madagascar. 



North Carolina and northern South Carolina, 



U. S. A. 

 Europe, India, Japan, Africa and Queensland, 



Australia. 

 S. Portugal, S. VV. Spain, Morocco. 

 Ubiquitous. 



Australia, from N. W. to S. W. 



Australia, extreme S. W. 



N. hemisphere in Old and New Worlds. 



Ubiquitous. 



Cuba; eastern S. America. 



S. and S. W. Australia. 



W. African and E. South American tropics. 



Ubiquitous. 



