122 JoL'EXAL OF THE MiTciiEj.L SociETv \^Hei)temher 



try within fifty miles of Mobile Bay. In some places it is just as 

 abundant and cons^^icuous as 8. fava is farther east. 



The known natural hybrids will now be discussed briefl3^ It is not 

 necessary to describe them, as each is almost exactly intermediate in 

 appearance between the parent species. They bloom less frequently 

 than the true species, and the flowers of one or two have never been 

 seen at all. They are nearly always found in the immediate vicinity 

 of their parents. Sarracenia purpurea is the parent of two of the 

 known hybrids, S. psittacina of one, >S^. minor of two, S. flava of 

 three, and S. Drummondii of two. ^o natural hybrids of 8. rubra 

 are certainly known, though Asa Gray in the first volume of his 

 Synoptical Flora of North America (published in 1895, several years 

 after his death) mentions the existence of plants which appear to be 

 hybrids between this and 8. purpurea, but without giving any local- 

 ity. No hybrids of 8. 8ledgei, the most recently described species, 

 have yet been reported, but their existence is not at all unlikely, for 

 there are three other species that associate with it. 



8arracenia purpurea x flava has quite a long history. One of the 

 colored figures in Catesby's "Natural History of Carolina," first pub- 

 lished in 1743, has been thought to represent it, but the figure is a 

 poor one, and is probably intended for 8. flava, which Catesby could 

 hardly have helped seeing on his travels, and does not inention other- 

 wise. Early in the nineteenth centur}^ Dr. James Macbride col- 

 lected in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, a pitcher-plant with- 

 out flowers, which was described by Elliott in 1821 in his ''Botany of 

 South Carolina and Georgia" as 8. Catesbaei, on account of its sup- 

 posed resemblance to Catesby's figure. The other 8arracenias known 

 to Elliott were purpurea, rubra, fiava, and minor, and of these he said 

 the new plant was most closely related to flava. Croom, examining 

 the same specimen a few years later, asserted that it did not differ 

 materially from 8. fiava; but Professor Macfarlane, who saw it about 

 1906, recognized it as this hybrid, which he had already known for 

 some years. 



In the Gardeners' Chronicle (London) for July 9, 1881, there is a 

 brief notice of a plant called by British horticulturists 8arracenia 

 Williamsii, which had been received in a shipment of plants from 



