74 On the North American Utricularia. 



"bate, lower lip entire, with the sides deflected ; palate large, 

 striped with brown ; spur long, stretched out (porrectum), 

 approaching the lower lip of the corolla, obtuse, emarginate, 

 conic at the base, linear at the tip, fruit cernuous ; root re- 

 pent, very long, very branching, decompound, the first radicles 

 naked, the rest furnished with utriculi. At the base of the 

 stem, and shooting out in an opposite direction to the branches 

 of the root, there is observed an imbricate ovate bud (turio), 

 which contains the embryo of the next year's growth ; and 

 this circumstance would go far in proving that the radicles 

 should be rather called leaves, did we not find that the utri- 

 culi are placed on them in the same manner as they are in 

 other species, upon what are undeniably roots ; and it would 

 not be very reasonable to suppose that the plant had no root 

 at all. Inhabits from Canada to Carolina. U Plate VI. 

 fig. 2. 



This is the species that in all the books is called U. vulgaris, 

 and positively stated to be the same with the European. But 

 a comparison of the two will show, that no stretch of the ima- 

 gination can find any resemblance between them, farther than 

 what is seen running through the whole genus. Roemer and 

 Schultes describe the U. vulgaris as follows : peduncle scapi- 

 form, 4 to 8-flowered, racemed, furnished with scales ; upper 

 lip of the corolla ovate-rounded, subtrilobate, subundulatc, 

 with an erect margin ; lower lip roundish, reflected at the 

 sides, subplicate ; palate bilobate, with orange-coloured 

 striae ; spur conic, reflected from the lower lip. Plate VI. 

 fig. 3. 



It appears from this description, in the first place, that the 

 U. vulgaris has not the fruit cernuous ; and secondly, that the 

 spur is short, conic, bent down, and not approaching the 

 lower lip of the corolla, and entire at the tip, precisely simi- 

 lar to what our species would have, were the upper part 

 cut off, and the lower and inflected part bent down ; be- 

 sides, in the representations given in botanical works, the rool 



