Chapter I — 11 — Heliamphora 



are none at all. Below the lower limit of the smooth area there be- 

 gins zone 4, which again is clothed, but more sparsely than the bell, 

 with downwardly directed hairs. These are very stout and claw-like 

 {2 — 5), while those of the bell are longer and flexible. Both kinds 

 are longitudinally ridged with delicate folds of cuticle, the hairs of the 

 bell especially so. The difference of stature and rigidity is related to 

 their functions. The hairs of the bell afford an unstable footing for 

 insects which are trying to get at the nectar on the surface between 

 them, and their flexibility adds to the instabihty.. while those in the 

 depths of the pitcher have the role of retention, and for this purpose 

 the stronger they are the better. There are no glands in zone 4. 

 There are no digestive glands present in this trap. 



The abnormal leaves on the reduced side shoots are of various forms 

 {2 — 2-4). The base of the shoot is enveloped in scale leaves. Fol- 

 lowing these there may be underdeveloped leaves, described by Krafft, 

 in which the tube is very slender and would have a very limited func- 

 tion as a trap, and acts simply as a petiole. The bell is relatively large 

 so that the whole behaves as nothing more than a photosynthetic organ. 

 A spoon is not developed. The inner surface of the blade (bell) is free 

 of hairs, but carries nectar glands. At the lower limits of the bell 

 there is a trapping zone of hairs, but the rest of the tube is quite 

 smooth. It is to be noticed that the "tube" is not truly such, since its 

 edges are not fused. This I judge from Krafft's drawing, though he 

 does not state so specifically. Goebel described a sort of juvenile leaf 

 at the base of normal shoots consisting of a closed tube, winged with 

 two wings as in the normal, but with a much reduced bell with out- 

 turned edges and no spoon. Krafft added some details, pointing out 

 that the whole of the inner surface, save a small zone at the base, is 

 lined with downward pointing hairs. The bell, with the exception of 

 the outturned edges, is also hairy, but the spoon — this is not evi- 

 dently such, nor did Goebel recognize it — is without hairs or glands. 

 Goebel described a still simpler and more elementary condition in 

 leaves seen on much reduced side shoots. These were small, with an 

 undeveloped bell, and the tube was open, though appearing closed by 

 the juxtaposition of the edges of the leaf margins, or perhaps some- 

 times closed by the concrescence or adhesion of these edges, a mode of 

 development which he argues is different from that of the normal leaf 

 which arises as a peltate structure. This idea has been elaborated by 

 Troll who generally supports Goebel's thesis that the tube of the 

 pitcher of Sarracenia and Heliamphora is fundamentally a peltate leaf. 

 The condition of concrescence or adhesion of the leaf margins is ac- 

 tually realized in the case of H. Tyleri in its fully developed normal 

 leaves, as we shall see. 



The latest described species, H. minor Gleason was found by Dr. 

 G. H. H. Tate on Mt. Auyan-Tepui, Venezuela in December, 1937 at 

 an altitude of 2,200 meters. Generally similar to H. nutans, it differs 

 in the more sturdy and less graceful leaves, 10 to 12 cm. long. The 

 spoon is larger and deeper, and orbicular in form. The bell is densely 

 hairy only along the marginal zone, with a few scattered small down- 

 ward directed hairs on the general surface, with many nectar glands. 

 The slight constriction at the base of the bell is hairy, with slen- 



