1886.] INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 195 



THE SARRACENIACE.?;, Oil AJIEEICAN PITCHER-PLANTS, 



consist of six species of Sarracenia, nearly all of which have several 

 varieties, and a large number of home-raised hybrids, besides one 

 species of Darlingtonia and one species of Heliamphora. Except 

 the last-named, they are all in cultivation, are similar in habit, and 

 are natives of North America, where they are found growing in 

 bogs, and even in places covered with shallow water. Their leaves 

 are radical, pitcher-shaped, and collected into tufts. At the flower- 

 ing season they send up numerous stems, bearing each a solitary 

 flower, the structure of which is quite as remarkable as that of 

 the leaf. The singular aspect of the flower is due to a great 

 extent to the umbrella-like expansion in which the style ter- 

 minates. This is five-lobed, the stigmatic surface being situated 

 at the deflexed point of each lobe. The shape of the style, or 

 perhaps the appearance of the whole flower, caused the first English 

 settlers in their native place to give the plant the name, now 

 also used, of " Side-saddle-flower." Eoth in flower and leaf the 

 Sarracenias are totally distinct from every other vegetable form. 

 Sarracenia piirpurm has been known in this country for nearly 

 three centuries ; for in quaint old Gerard's Hcrhall, a characteristic 

 figure is given, and he says that he copied the figure, " for the 

 strangenesse thereof, and hopes that some or other who travell into 

 foreign parts may find this elegant plant and know it by this small 

 expression, and bring it home with them, tliat so we may come to 

 a perfecter knowledge thereof." Since Gerard's time up till 1829, 

 all the known species have been introduced ; but witliin the last 

 ten or twelve years the number of forms in cultivation have 

 been more than doubled, not by those who travel into foreign parts, 

 but by hybridists. So distinct are some of those hybrids, that had 

 their origin not been well known, they might have passed as true 

 species. 



Sarracenias may be divided into two sections, — those having the 

 mouths of their pitcher-shaped leaves open in consequence of the lids 

 standing erect, thus allowing rain to enter freely, as in Sarracenia 

 Drummonclii, S. Jiava, S. rubra, and *S. pw^mrca ; and those having 

 the lids projecting over the mouths of the pitchers, entirely prevent- 

 ing rain falling into them, as in ^S*. variola ris and S. jjsittaeina. 

 The structure of Sarracenia is somewhat similar to that of 

 Nepenthes. Tlie modus operandi by which insects are " caught 

 and done for " is also similar. The under surface of the lid is 

 baited with a honey secretion forming the attractive surface, but 

 there is also a honeyed pathway from the bottom of the leaf leading 

 up to this larger feeding-ground, to which ants and other creatures 



