28 Chapters i7i Modern Botany chap. 



of the lid downwards into the pitcher opening, their points 

 ending just where the intruder would naturally insinuate its 

 neck. And so on, as with Sarracenia, we see that nature's 

 scenes are like Shakespearian ones : around the main in- 

 cident (or what we take to be that) there may be grouped 

 all manner of by-play, here quaint or picturesque, or again 

 laden with deadly issues. 



Morphology of the Pitcher. — Baillon, and indeed first 

 of all Linnaeus, pointed out that by exaggerating the con- 

 cavity of a (peltate) leaf like that of the Water-lily {Nyjn- 

 phcea) we might obtain a pitcher like that of Sarracenia. 

 Baillon has described intermediate forms — incipient 

 pitchers — exhibited by a variety of Peperomia arifolza, a 

 plant allied to the Peppers, and without going so far afield 

 we may see exhibited nearly every year at meetings of 

 botanical or horticultural societies specimens of monstrous 

 pitcher leaves in cabbage, lime, and other plants, where 

 elongated stalk or enrolled leaf forms a well for the rain- 

 drops. A recent writer describes such a pitcher upon a 

 leaf of vetch {Vicia sepium\ of which he ascribes the 

 origin to the puncture of an insect. 



Meckel's theory of the pitcher of Sarracenia is that it re- 

 presents a hollowed leaf-stalk, the lid corresponding to the 

 blade of the leaf However this may be, the interpretation 

 already given of the Darlingtonia pitcher as a further develop- 

 ment of that of Sarracenia of course remains unaltered. 



Many authors have been wont to regard the broad leafy 

 portion of the Nepenthes as but a marginal expansion of 

 the lower portion of the leaf-stalk, the tendril being its 

 upper portion, and the pitcher thus corresponding to the 

 whole leaf, pouched as we have seen is actually the case in 

 Cephalotus. They trace the margins of the leaf in its ex- 

 ternal wings, and point out the little threadlike tip of the 

 leaf just behind the lid. 



