Chapter V 

 CEPHALOTUS FOLLICULARIS 



Distribution. — Habit. — Habitat. — Foliage leaf. — Pitcher leaf. — Development of 

 pitcher leaf. — Morphology. — Anatomy. — Digestion. 



The West Australian Pitcher Plant is a unique form and, though 

 related to Sarracenia and Nepenthes, diverges from them in many de- 

 tails of form and structure. It occurs in a lunate area, in extreme 

 S. W. Austraha, one horn of the crescent lying about 150 miles S. of 

 Perth, the other at the Fitzgerald River, the southern rim of the area 

 passing through Albany. Its first collector was probably Archibald 

 Menzies, naturalist of the Vancouver's Expedition of 1791. Menzies 

 "landed at King George's Sound and made large collections." But as 

 these were not studied till much later by Robert Brown, the plant, 

 if actually found, did not become known. In the following year, 1792, 

 came the expedition under d'Entrecasteau (" Voyage a la recherche de 

 la Perouse''). The naturahst was La Billardiere. He landed first "on 

 one of the islands of Esperance Bay and then on the mainland" (Gard- 

 ner 1926). Here the naturalist of the expedition found the plant 

 which he later (1806) described under the name Cephalotus follicularis. 



The plant is of rosette habit, the rosette, where primary, surmount- 

 ing a tap-root (La Billardiere). and in older plants ending branches of 

 a freely forking rootstock. These branches when small produce for 

 some time only minute leaves and pitchers; more massive branches 

 produce at once larger or even normal sized organs. The flowers, in a 

 short panicle, and borne on a very long slender scape, triangular at its 

 base, are small, apetalous, have a six-parted calyx and twelve stamens 



The habitat is the drier parts of peaty swamps. The leaves are, 

 as has been known since the publication of La Billardiere's descrip- 

 tion, of two very distinct kinds: the fohage leaves, or " non-ascidif orm " 

 (Dickson 1878) (9 — 6) and the pitcher or ascidiform leaves {g — 1-3). 



The fohage leaves attain a length of about 13 or 14 cm. when of 

 large size. The blade is ovate and acute, about the length of the peti- 

 ole, which, as Troll has shown, is of unifacial structure. Two of the 

 vascular strands, dorsal and ventral, facing each other wood to wood, 

 enter and extend up into the blade, thus indicating, according to Troll, 

 the peltate structure of the leaf. The ventral strand enters and sup- 

 phes vascular tissues to the hd of the pitcher when this develops in 

 place of a flat leaf. The blade is furthermore inchned to transverse 

 thickening above the petiole (9 — 6 at left). This becomes very pro- 

 nounced in intergrade forms between pitchers and foliage leaves which 

 in this plant occur very frequently, and will be described below. 



The leaf is thick, coriaceous and supplied with nectar glands, and 

 its surface smooth and glassy. The margins are ciliated with the 

 pecuHar hairs mentioned by Dickson (1878). Their pecuUarity con- 



