Francis E. Lloyd — 214 — Carnivorous Plants 



easily recognizable. But most to be wondered at are the traps which 

 present an astounding degree of mechanical delicacy depending on 

 a fineness of structure scarcely equalled elsewhere in the plant king- 

 dom. Moreover they occur in an unexpected variety of form. But 

 withal they are small, the largest scarcely exceeding 5 mm. in great- 

 est extent, the smallest 0.3 mm. The prey caught by these traps 

 are small — water fleas, minute larvae often of mosquitos, very young 

 fish (Dean) and small tadpoles, fish and tadpoles, however, being 

 ensnared only by being caught by the tail or head in the mouth 

 of the trap but not entirely engulfed as is smaller prey (Dean, 

 Lloyd). Larger prey may, however, be finally "entirely absorbed" 

 according to Matheson (1930), as e.g. in the case of the larva of 

 Brachydeutera argentata. Matheson sees the difficulty of explain- 

 ing this, since the greater mass of the animal's body is outside of 

 the trap. An explanation is, however, at hand and will be later of- 

 fered. 



The observation that mosquito larvae are often caught in the 

 traps has led some investigators to hope that the floating large trapped 

 species of Utricidaria would be useful in aiding to control those pests 

 (Matheson 1930). It is well enough known that multitudes of 

 mosquito larvae are in fact captured, the number being limited only 

 by the number of traps available (Franca). 



The flowers are of the personate type, two-lipped, the throat 

 usually closed by a palate, and the lower Hp provided with a spur 

 of various shape, except in a few species, in which it is a saccate 

 enlargement, as in Biovularia, in U. cymbantha, U. Stephens ae (Ms. 

 name), and in U. minor, a fact which tends to invalidate Kamienski's 

 genus. U. purpurea and its co-species have flowers with a peculiarly 

 laterally saccate lower lip. Most extraordinary are the two species 

 U. capilliflora F.v.M., and U. Dunstani Lloyd (Lloyd 1936^) (Text 

 FIG. 5). The former has the upper lip drawn out into two very long 

 attenuate lobes, the lower lip into five slender finger-like lobes. In 

 U. Dunstani, the upper lobe is rounded and entire while the lower 

 lip is five lobed, the middle adjoining two lobes small, and the two 

 lateral lobes very long and attenuate and to the casual observer iden- 

 tical with the long tips of the upper lip in U. capilliflora. The flowers 

 are very small; had they been large they would have excited as much 

 admiration as the flowers of some orchids or that of an Aristolochia 

 with long appendages. The showy flowers of some S. American spe- 

 cies have been mentioned. These are large and are rendered conspicu- 

 ous by the wide lateral lobes of the lower lip particularly. Yellow 

 is the most prevalent color, but white to purple flowers are also fre- 

 quent with admixtures in the form of yellow or reddish markings 

 on white or blue grounds; or red on yellow, especially on the palate, 

 are often met with. Generally the pistil has a unilocular, globular 

 ovary with a two lipped stigma, the lower being considerably larger 

 than the upper. The seeds are usually numerous on a globular ba- 

 sifixed placenta. In certain species, however, two to three seeds 

 only are produced on a rounded placenta {U. cymbantha) or two only, 

 back to back, in Biovularia, the placenta reduced. The release of 

 the seeds may be by circumcissile or irregular fracture, by a trian- 



