1918] The American Pitcher-Plants 111* 



a name, and early in 1907* he named it after Dr. W. II. Sledge, of 

 Mobile, who first sent him specimens of it. 



It is fairly common in wet pine-barrens from the west side of 

 ]\Iobile Bay to eastern Louisiana, and has been collected in Smith, 

 Henderson, and Hardin counties, Texas; being the only southern 

 pitcher-plant known west of the Mississippi River. East of Mobile 

 Bay I have seen a few specimens in the southern part of Baldwin 

 County, Alabama, and what appears to be the same thing (though it 

 may be a variety of the next) in boggy places among the long-leaf pine 

 hills in Chilton and Autauga counties, near the center of the State. 



Sarracenia fJava (PI. 4) is a showy plant with straight erect trump- 

 et-shaped leaves averaging about a foot and a half tall, and two inches 

 or so in diameter at the mouth of the tube. They are bright lemon 

 yellow (or green in shady places), with an irridescent purple spot, 

 or a cluster of purple veins, on the throat or neck, which doubtless 

 serves to lure insects to their destruction. Unlike most of the species 

 previously enumerated, this regularly bears two very different kinds 

 of leaves. The conspicuous insect-catching ones die down in the fall, 

 and are immediately succeeded by green sword-like ones somewhat 

 shorter, which last through the winter. (See illustration.) The 

 flowers are yellow, on stalks usually shorter than the leaves ; and there 

 are few flowering plants so nearly yellow throughout as this one. 



This striking plant was probably first collected at least three hun- 

 dred years ago by some of the early botannical explorers of Virginia 

 and North Carolina, and it was in cultivation in Europe soon after- 

 ward. The present name dates from the time of Linnaeus. It is 

 doubtless the most abundant plant of its family, though not the most 

 widely distributed. In some parts of its range, particularly in 

 Georgia, there may be as many as ten thousand plants to the acre, 

 making a mass of bright color that can be seen from afar. Its favor- 

 ite habitat is sandy gentle slopes perpetually moistened by sei'j)ing 

 water; it is rarely found in flat pine woods, in jkukIs, or in peat bogs. 

 It extends from a few milc^s south t)f Petersburg, Virginia,t southward 



*.Tourniil of Hotaiiy 4.'>:l. .Inn. 1007. _ 



tSee Torroyu 4:123. Auk. I'.IOl ; Bull. Torroy Hot. ( lul. .M .. . 1 1 



