126 PLANTS WITH TRAPS AND PITFALLS TO ENSNARE ANIMALS. 
and turn their concave surfaces towards falling rain. They serve, moreover, at 
least in Sarracenia purpwrea, to catch the drops of rain, which then flow down 
into the bottom of the ascidia and fill them more or less with water. There is 
very little evaporation from the hollow pitchers; and even when there has been no 
rain for a week, one always finds some of the previously-collected water at the 
bottom. The inner surface of a pitcher is lined by cells arranged like the scales 
of enamel on a pike’s back (see fig. 19°). The internally-projecting wall of each 
of these scales is transformed into a stiff deeurved point, and the lower the position 
of the cells the longer do the points become. The shell-like lamina again, above 
the contracted orifice, bears glandular hairs which exude honey, so that the parts 
surrounding the aperture are covered by a thin film of sweet juice. 
Many animals are attracted by this honey. Some are winged and alight from 
flying; others, being wingless, make use of a peculiar ridge, which projects on the 
concave side of the utricle, to help them to creep up the latter. If these honey- 
eaters happen to travel away from the lamina to that part of the pitcher which 
is lmed with the smooth and slippery decurved cells, they are as good as lost. 
They slip down over the brink, every attempt to climb up again being rendered 
futile by the downwardly-pointing needles which clothe the lower part of the wall; 
and ultimately they fall into the water collected at the bottom, where they are 
drowned and their bodies putrefy. The products of decay are absorbed as 
nutriment by the epidermal cells in this region. The number of animals meeting 
with this fate is often so great that an offensive odour, arising from the decaying 
bodies, is emitted by the utricles and is noticeable at a considerable distance. In 
the wild state, the ascidiform utricles are often half-full of drowned animals and 
it is stated that in these circumstances birds also put in an appearance and pick 
some of the dead remains out of the utricles. 
Whether the liquid filling the bottom of the pitchers consists simply of rain- 
water, or whether the latter is modified by a secretion originating in the gland- 
like groups of cells there (see fig. 287), is still uncertain. A centipede over 
4 centimeters long having fallen into a utriele of Sarracenia purpurea in the 
night was found only half immersed in the water. The upper half of the creature 
projected above the liquid, and made violent efforts to escape; but the lower part 
had, after a few hours, not only become motionless but had turned white from the 
effect of the surrounding liquid; it appeared to be macerated, and exhibited 
alterations which are not produced in so short a time in centipedes immersed in 
ordinary rain-water. When a number of captured animals are undergoing putre- 
faction at the same time in a pitfall, the liquid turns brown and has the appearance 
of manure-liquor. 
There is a great difference between the utricles of Sarracenia purpurea and the 
apparatus adapted to the capture of prey in the plants of which we have chosen as 
examples, Sarracenia variolaris, a native of the marshes of Alabama, Florida, and 
Carolina, and the Darlingtonia Californica, found growing at a height of from 
300 to 1000 meters above the sea on Californian uplands from the borders of 
