Xo. 6.] HOOKER — CARNIVOROUS HABITS OF PLANTS. 361 



3. A glandular surface (seen iu S.jmrjnirea), which occupies 

 a considerable portion of the cavity of tlie pitcher below the 

 conducting:- surface. It is formed of a layer of epidermis with 

 sinuous cells, and is studded with glands; and being smooth 

 and polished, this too affords no foothold for escaping insects. 



4. A detentU'G surface, which occupies the lower part of the 

 pitcher, iu some cases for nearly its whole length. It possesses 

 no cuticle, and is studded with deflexed, rigid, glass-like, needle- 

 formed, striated hairs, which further converge towards the axis 

 of the diminishing cavity ; so that an insect, if once amongst- 

 them, is effectually detained, and its struggles have no other re- 

 sult thaji to wedge it lower and more firmly in the pitcher. 



Now, it is a very curious thing that in S.piirpurea^ which has 

 an open pitcher, so formed as to receive and retain a maximum 

 of rain, no honey-secretion has hitherto been found, nor has any 

 water been seen to be secreted in the pitcher ; it is, further, the 

 only species in which (as stated above) I have found a special 

 glandular surface, and in which no glands occur on the detentive 

 surface. This concurrence of circumstances suggests the possi- 

 bility of this plant either having no proper secretion of its own, 

 or only giving it off after the pitcher has been filled with rain- 

 water. 



In S.flava. which has open-mouthed pitchers and no special 

 glandular surface, I find glands in the upper portion of the deten* 

 tive surface, among the hairs, but not in the middle or lower part 

 of the same surface. It is proved that >S^./aya secretes fluid, 

 but under what precise conditions I am not aware. I have found 

 none but what may have been accidentally introduced in the few 

 cultivated specimens which I have examined, either in the full- 

 grown state, or in the half-grown when the lid arches over the 

 pitcher. I find the honey in these as described by the American 

 observers, and honey-secreting glands on the edge of the wing of 

 the pitcher, together with similar glands on the outer surface of 

 the pitcher, as seen by Yogi in >S'. purjnirca. 



Of the pitchers with closed mouths, I have examined those of 

 *S'. variolaris only, whose tissues closely resemble those of S.flava, 

 That it secrets a fluid noxious to insects there is no doubt, 

 tliough in the specimens I examined I found none. 



Tliere is thus obviously much still to be learned with regard 

 to Sarraoenia, and t hope that American botanists will apply 

 tjjem^elves to this task. It is not probable tliat three pitchers, 



