HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 199 



^ower-like leaf, which produces also considerable honey, so that 

 we may well say: they possess sweet lips and a honey month. 

 But the poor animals kiss once too often; entering the interior 

 •of the pitcher, whose rim is made so slippery by a bluish coat of 

 wax that the unwary insect is unable to crawl up again, it is 

 drowned in the fluid below. Most captives die at once, others 

 try in vain to save themselves by crawling upwards. Upon the 

 larger pitchers the bulging rim of the mouth is closed with sharp 

 teeth, pointing downwards [Fig. 3 (5)]. In many species these 

 sets of teeth looks like those of carnivorous beasts, and in the 

 species shown in Fig. 5 (4) occurs even a double row of teeth, 

 making an escape an impossibility. The large amount of fluid 

 in these cans will soon drown the victim. This liquid is produced 

 by glands located upon the inner walls, and consists mainly of 

 "^ater, showing but little acidity as long as no animals have been 

 -caught. But as soon as a victim has entered and reached the 

 bottom of the pit, more fluid is secreted, which is distinctively of 

 an acid nature, and jiossesses the property of dissolving albumen, 

 flesh and blood. 



This fluid possesses not alone the properties, but also the com- 

 position of gastric juice. Besides the organic acids, such as ap- 

 ple acid, citric acid, formic acid, a pepsine-like ferment has been 

 •discovered, and organic bodies containing nitrogenous matter 

 have been artificially dissolved in it. If we pour upon a small 

 piece of meat, in a glass vessel, some of the fluid contained in a 

 pitcher, which has, avS yet, not caught any food, the meat is but 

 slightly changed; but if a few drops of formic acid are added, 

 then it is dissolved, and the same changes take place in it as if 

 it had entered the stomach of an animal. True digestion, there- 

 fore, may be said to take place in the pitchers, and the digested 

 parts of the animal food are absorbed by peculiar cells situated 

 in the bottom and lower parts of the walls. 



A third group of carnivorous plants belonging to our first 

 class, consists in plants whose scale-like leaves possess peculiar 

 cavities, into which but very minute animals can enter, as the 

 entrances to them are very small. Arrangements to prevent the 

 animals from escaping are lacking, and the living food is simply 

 arrested and sucked empty by protoplasma-threads protruded 

 from peculiar cells found in the cavities [Fig. 9 (5)]. One of the 

 most peculiar plants of this group is the Lathnea squamaria 

 [Fig. 9 (1-5) ], a plant without chlorophyll, and a subterranean 

 parasite upon the roots of other plants. The su])terranean 



