9° 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Mr. Darwin, in his excellent work on 

 Insectivorous Plants has described most 

 of the species then known. He has, how- 

 ever, omitted several of our American 

 species belonging to the second class, or 

 manure-generating plants. Of these I may 

 mention Sarracenia purpurea, the well 

 known pitcher-plant. Its brown-purple 

 color denotes that it lacks the usual supply 

 of chlorophyl, and its singular pitcher- 

 shaped root-leaves generally contain a dark 

 fluid with numerous drowned insects in all 

 stages of decomposition. The stiff bristles 

 on the inner face of the so-called "hood" 

 have been described, but the much longer 

 and slenderer hairs at the bottom or small 

 end of the pitchers seem to have been 

 overlooked.* These cover the inner sur- 

 face of the pitchers, commencing at the base, 

 extending about one-fourth of the way to 

 the top, and terminating abruptly all round 

 at the point where the pitcher begins 

 rapidly to enlarge. I found them all 

 closely appressed with their free ends uni- 

 formly pointing downward, and although 

 they are more slender than would be 

 thought most effective, there can be little 

 doubt that they constitute an efficient snare 

 for small insects venturing down into the 

 narrow portion to which they are attracted 

 by a savory secretion. 



In Darlingtonia, an allied genus from the 

 Pacific coast, an excellent description of 

 which may be found in the Botany of Cali- 

 fornia, the mechanism for accomplishing 

 the same purpose is still more complicated 

 and well illustrates the astonishing lengths 

 to which morphological modification may 

 be carried to secure these apparently un- 

 necessary ends. 



Cuphea viscosissima, a little plant in the 

 natural order Lythracece, and a congener 

 of the common garden Cigar-plant, is, as 

 its name implies, "most viscid" throughout 

 its stem and branches, which are densely 

 covered with gland-bearing hairs. These 

 serve as effective fly-traps, being usually 

 found more or less covered with small 

 gnats, and I have more than once found 



*Prof. C. V. Riley has observed and describes simiLir hairs 

 in Sarracenia Tariolaris, See Proc. A. A. A. S. 



full-sized flies adhering by their feet. 

 Although it is difficult to understand how 

 this plant succeeds in utilizing the prey 

 thus caught, it is perhaps more difficult to 

 believe that all this cruelty is entirely 

 wanton and purposeless. But aside from 

 optimistic considerations, it is not easy to 

 account for the development of any wholly 

 useless mechanism. The reddish color of 

 the stem of this plant marks a deficiency 

 in chlorophyl and points in so far to a 

 probable partially parasitic habit, and 

 though no movements take place in the 

 glands,* an internal circulation and "pro- 

 cess of aggregation" may reasonably be 

 assumed to go on. 



America furnishes in Dioncea miisciptila 

 the most perfectly adapted insectivorous 

 plant known to botanical science. Its 

 wonderful mechanism and behavior have 

 been faithfully portrayed both by Mr. Wm. 

 M. Canby and Mrs. Mary Treat, as also by 

 Mr. Darwin, and my own limited observa- 

 tions upon it simply confirm, so far as they 

 go, the results obtained by them. I men- 

 tion it merely as an illustration of the rich 

 field which this country presents for the 

 investigation of all these questions. 



The entire subject-matter of this paper 

 is without a specific designation or name, 

 and without a place in any existing class- 

 ification or curriculum of the sciences. We 

 have zoology, and we have botany, and 

 we have entomology, but neither of these 

 embraces any of the above-named phen- 

 omena, or at most, only half of each 

 phenomenon. 



I should therefore fail to justify its 

 presentation were I not to point out, 

 in conclusion, the importance of bring- 

 ing botany and entomology, at least into 

 more intimate connection. The botan- 

 ist who is unfamiliar with insect forms is 

 never attracted by them when seen in and 

 around flowers, drowned in the troughs, or 

 caught in the viscid secretions "bl insectiv- 

 orous plants. Thus the observation is only 

 half made. I state this as a confession, 

 and it is a confession which every thought- 



* Prof. Thomas Meehan, " The Native Fowers and Ferns 

 I of the United States," Vol, i, p. 43. 



