[Reprinted fmni ToRREVA, Vol. 8, No. 8, August, 1908.] 



A STUDY OF THE DIGESTIVE POWER OF 

 SARRACENIA PURPUREA 



i;v Winifred J. RoiiiNSON 



Introduction 



The family Sarraceniaceae consists of three genera, two of which 

 are each represented by a single species, HclianipJiora, collected 

 in Guiana by Schomburgk and Im Thurm, and Darlmgtonia, 

 which grows in the mountains of California, while Sarraccnia has 

 seven species described for eastern North America (Macfarlane, 

 in Engler, Pflanzenreich (Heft 34) 4^'": 24. 1908). Natural 

 hybrids have been observed by Harper (Bull. Torrey Club 30 : 

 332. 1903; 33: '^l^- 1906) and Macfariane (/. c. 21) and 

 numerous artificial hybrids have been produced by horticultur- 

 alists. All members of the family are native to sunny bogs 

 where their pitchered leaves appear in rosettes from the center 

 of which the flowers arise. 



The leaves o{ Sarracenia purpurea are trumpet-shaped with a 

 ventral wing and a terminal lid or lamina (fig. \d). The outer 

 surface has short, blunt, upwardly directed hairs, cells with the 

 wavy outline of ordinary epidermal cells, and numerous stomata. 

 The inner surface of the terminal portion, or lamina, the "attrac- 

 tive surface " according to Hooker (Nature 10 : 369. 1874) is 

 covered with stiff, reflexed, whitish hairs, the surface of which is 

 corrugated. These contained, in the specimens examined by the 

 writer, a colorless or pinkish fluid with vacuoles, though Voo-f 

 (Sitzungsb. Akad. Wiss. Wien 50: 281. 1864) stated that he 

 found no solid or liquid contents in them but that they were filled 

 with air, and Wunschmann (E. & P. Nat. Pflanzenfam. 3-: 352. 

 1 891) speaks of them as filled with air. At the entrance to the 



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