'' TURNING THE TABLES.'' 283 



the tropic species have become semi -parasitic and 

 epiphytal, and the temperate species, chiefly Carni- 

 voroiLs in their character, although there are Indian 

 and Malayan species of Utricularia also possessed of 

 bladders, in which insects are caught. 



The tide of vegetable life is always ebbing and 

 flowing. Whilst some species of plants are acquiring 

 new habits, others are forsaking their more recently 

 formed ones, and returning to their ancestral modes 

 of life. We have in our existing floras plants which 

 are becoming insectivorous, both after the Sundew 

 fashion, and also after that of the Pitcher- plants. 

 The connate leaves of our wayside Teasel {Dipsaats 

 sylvestris) may be found in the summer time with 

 their basins filled with water, in which float the 

 bodies of drowned ants and other insects. What is 

 this but the foundation both of the habit and the 

 architecture of a Pitcher-plant? The Catchflies 

 {Silene) always have the upper parts of their flower- 

 heads and stems coated with dead flies, which have 

 been limed by the numerous sticky glands. This may 

 be regarded as the commencement of the Sundew 

 habit of carnivorous plants. 



On the other hand, some botanists regard the 

 exquisitely pretty Grass of Parnassus {Parnassia 

 paliistris) as an insectivorous flower, which has given 

 up the habit, but which still retains in the remarkable 

 clusters of organs seen inside the petals evidences 

 of its former career. Dr. Miiller, however, thinks 



