54 WILD, OK NATIVE FLOWERS. 



The Pitcher Plant is by no means one of those flowers found only 

 in inaccessible bogs and dense cedar-swamps, as are some of our 

 rare and lovely Orchids. In almost any grassy swamp, at the borders 

 of low-lying lakes, and beaver-meadows — often in wet,spongy'meadows — 

 it may be found forming large beds of luxuriant growth. 



When wet with recent showers, or glistening with dew-drops, the 

 rich crimson veinings of the broadly scalloped lip of the tubular leaf, 

 (which is thickly beset with fine stiff silvery hairs,) retain the moisture, 

 and shine and glisten in the sun-light. 



The root-stock is thick, and bears many fibres. The tubular leaves 

 are of a reddish tinge on the outer and convex side, but of a delicate 

 light-green within. The texture is soft, smooth and leathery; the base of 

 the leaf, at the root, is narrow and pipe-stem-like, expanding into a large 

 hollow receptacle, capable ot containing a wine-glass-full of liquid ; even 

 in dry seasons this cup is rarely found empty. The hollow form of the 

 leaves, and the broad ewer-like lips, have obtained for the plant its local 

 and wide-spread name of "Pitcher Plant," and "Soldier's Drinking Cup." 

 The last name I had from a poor old emigrant pensioner, when he 

 brought me a specimen of the plant from the banks of a half dried up 

 lake, near which he was located : " Many a draft of blessed water have 

 we poor soldiers had, when in Egypt, out of the leaves of a plant like 

 this, and we used to call it the "Soldier's Drinking Cup." 



Most probably the plant that afforded the "blessed water" to the poor 

 thirsty soldiers was, the Nepenthes distillaforia, which plant is found in 

 Egypt and other parts of Africa. Perhaps there are but few among the 

 inhabitants of this well-watered country that have as fully appreciated 

 the value of the Pitcher Plant as did our poor uneducated Irish pen- 

 sioner, who said that he always thought that God in His goodness had 

 created the plant to give drink to such as were athirst on a hot and toil- 

 some march ; and so he looked with gratitude and admiration on its 

 representative in Canada. Many a lesson may we learn from the lips 

 of the poor and the lowly. 



Along the inner portion of the leaf there is a wing or flap which 

 adds to its curious appearance. The evident use of this a])pendage is 

 to contract tlie inner side of the leaf, and to produce a corresponding 

 rounding of the outer jjortion, which is thus thrown backwards, and 

 enables the moisture more readily to fill the cup and to be there retained. 

 Quantities of small (lies, beetles and other insects, enter the i)itrher, 

 possibly for shelter, but are unable to get out again, owing to the reflexed 

 bristly hairs that line the up|)er jiart of the tube and \'\\), and thus find a 

 watery grave in the moisture that fills the hollow below, whence there 

 is no escape for the poor deluded prisoners. 



