''TURNING THE TABLES.'' 279 



It is hardly less instructive to notice how plants 

 belonging to widely-separated orders, and having no 

 affinities with each other, to say nothing about their 

 being seperated by great geographical distances and 

 natural barriers, like the Sarracenias^ Nepenthes^ and 

 CephalotiLSy have hit upon the same general device. 



Our English flora is represented by other flesh- 

 feeding or carrion -feeding species. Chief among 

 them is the pretty and conspicuous Butterwort 

 {Pi7igtcicula vulgajHs), with its violet coloured and 

 shaped flower borne on a tall stem from the midst 

 of a pale-green rosette-shaped cluster of leaves, in 

 wet and boggy places. Those leaves are very 

 greasy, whence the plant's name ; and it is their 

 greasiness which prevents small flies that have 

 alighted upon them from getting away. Nay, their 

 very slippings about and struggles only incite the 

 glands to secrete more " butter," and the edges of the 

 leaf curl up to prevent its sliding or trailing its body 

 away. Then again, we have the Bladderworts 

 {Utricularia) of our sluggish streams, better known 

 by their spikes of small yellow flowers appearing 

 above the surface, than by the remarkable structure 

 of their submerged " bladders." The latter were 

 formerly believed to exist for the purpose of buoying 

 up the plant, and in part they may still serve that 

 purpose ; but Darwin and others have shown that 

 they are genuine insect -traps, constructed on the 

 same mechanical principle as an eel-trap, very easy 



