PITCHER PLANTS 



hollow, funnel-shaped tubes with a short, flat wing along 

 one edge. They may be an inch or two in diameter at the 

 top or wider end, where there is also a sort of half-open lid 

 which keeps rain from getting into the inside of the leaf. 

 The colour of these tube-like or vase-like leaves varies. It is 

 often variegated with brown, red, and yellow, and is con- 

 spicuous enough even at a distance. Thus insects fly to 

 these vases and alight on the little cap or lid, where they 

 find honey and enjoy themselves. Other insects crawl up 

 along the rim or wing of the vase, finding honey here and 

 there along their road. Having got to the lid, the insect, 

 being of an inquiring or inquisitive disposition, will look 

 inside the tube and endeavour to find more honey therein. 



It reaches the rim of the vase and finds that there is 

 honey inside ; it can easily crawl down, and fails to notice 

 that the inside of the vase is lined with long stiff" points 

 which all point downwards. These points or hairs do not at 

 all interfere with its passage down, and it proceeds to the 

 honey which forms a smooth, slippery coating. Then, after 

 greedily absorbing the honey, it tries to get out again. 

 But that is quite a different matter. Each one of these 

 points or hairs is facing it, and the whole inside is smooth 

 and slippery. It struggles, slips, and falls into a pool of 

 water which fills the lower part of the vase. That is what 

 the plant has developed these pitchers for. The body of the 

 insect after a time decays away, and only its empty shell 

 remains. An extraordinary number of insects are caught by 

 these Sarracenia vases. Sometimes in one which is only ten 

 inches long, three or four inches will be full of the corpses 

 of blackbeetles and other drowned insects, and it is said 

 that birds occasionally visit these vases in order to pick 

 them out. There is probably some sort of secretion in the 



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