Chapter XII — 195 — Dionaea and Aldrovanda 



just beyond the extent of the bristles. They measure about 8 mm. 

 when widely open. The seeds are ovate, clothed with a hard shell 

 (KORZSCHINSKI 1886). 



This unique plant was first seen in India and was cited in 1696 

 by Plukenet as '' Lenticula palustris Indica" in his Almagestum 

 Botanicum or Phytographia (4: 211, pi. 41, fig. 6). In 1747 Gaetano 

 Monti had received a collection of it made by an Italian physician, Dr. 

 Carlo Amadei, in the DulioH Swamp, east from Bologna. It was 

 named Aldrovandia by Monti in honor of the Italian naturalist, 

 Ulisse Aldrovandi, who died in 1605. This plant was identified 

 by J. J. Dillon with the Plukenet one from India. In 1751 it was 

 mentioned in a dissertation by L. J. Chenon (1751), a student of 

 Linnaeus, as Aldrovanda (probably a mistake in copying, thinks 

 DuvAL-Jou\TE, 1861) and finally published byLiNN.\EUS in the Species 

 Plantarum 1753, p. 281, as Aldrovanda vesiculosa. 



Caspary points out on high philological authority that the Lin- 

 naean name is ungrammatical. The name Aldrovanda is now generally 

 accepted in accordance with the International Rules of Botanical 

 Nomenclature. Another plant from India was described as the species 

 verticillata by Roxburgh {Flora Indica 1832, 2: p. 113), but this 

 was shown by T. Thomson not to be distinct, but has been regarded 

 as a variety. A plant from Queensland, Australia, once called the 

 var. auslralis, is not distinguishable from the original species, though 

 Darwin found some difference in size, together with other minor ones, 

 such as the number of serrations on the bristles. 



Aldrovanda vesiculosa ranges from S. France to Japan, south to 

 Austraha, and in Africa to the southern tropics where it was found 

 by Miss E. L. Stephens in the Chobe Swamp, ico miles west of 

 Victoria Falls. This material, together with living plants, has been 

 studied by me, the latter having been obtained in Silesia and grown 

 during the summer of 1933 in the Garden of the Botanical Institute 

 of Munich. Beautiful herbarium specimens in all stages of fruiting 

 and flowering from Mizoro Pond, near Kyoto, were sent me by Dr. 



JOJI ASHIDA. 



The morphology and anatomy of the vegetative parts of the 

 plant were first described by Cohn in 1850, and more completely 

 by Caspary in 1859 and 1862. Further reference to details was 

 made by Goebel (1891), Fenner (1904), and Haberlandt (1901). 



Like the leaves of Dionaea, those of Aldrovanda consist of a flat- 

 tened petiole armed at its apex. This appears somewhat truncated, 

 with four to six, or seldom even eight parenchymatous lobe-Hke bris- 

 tles, surmounted by a nearly circular leaf blade, 4 mm. wide. When 

 mature the petiole is wedge-shaped, broader at the apex, 6 mm. long 

 and 4 mm. wide. The bristles extend another 5 mm. The midrib 

 of the petiole with its vascular tissue continues into the blade, which 

 has the form of a steel trap, as in Dionaea. 



Seedling {ig — 1-5). — The elliptical seed has a snout at one end, 

 plugged with a cap, under which lies the root end of the short hypo- 

 cotyl. Surmounting this are the two broadly conical cotyledons 

 pressing against the large endosperm, much as in Dionaea (Smith). 

 In early germination the hypocotyl protrudes, pushing off the cap 



