90 



Homopters with a special receptacle, the fluid simply falls to the 

 ground and is lost. 



This is far from being the case with the Pitcher plants, which 

 utilise their fluid for theii' own ends ; innumerable flies and beetles 

 crowding in to the tempting reservoirs, and there meeting with 

 watery graves. Occasionally it would appear that the Sarracenia 

 is employed artificially as a flycatcher in the United States. In 

 South Carolina, for instance, the leaves are detached, taken into 

 a sitting-room, and placed in a vertical position. Very soon the 

 flies are attracted to the orifice of the Pitcher, where they appear to 

 suck up a sweet clammy substance, exuding from the interior of 

 the tube with great avidity. In a few seconds they have marched 

 down the fatal passage, from whence they drop into the treacher- 

 ous pool at the base, never to see the light again, their return 

 being effectually guarded against by a ring of hairs, which is 

 fitted to the interior of the tube, and which all point downwards. 

 If the room is much frequented by flies, it takes but few hours 

 to fill the Pitcher with victims. * 



But however agreeable the fluid may be to the flies, or however 

 useful the leaves may be as a trap, its treacherous properties are 

 sometimes, in an indirect manner, anything but agreeable to the 

 weary traveller, who hoping to enjoy an agreeable draught, finds 

 only a mass of corruption. "We had been told (writes Wallace), 

 that we should find water at Padang Batu, (Malacca) ; but we 

 looked about for it in vain, as we were exceedingly thirsty. At 

 last we turned to the Pitcher plants, but the water contained in 

 the Pitchers — about half a pint in each — was full of insects, "t 



A kind of Pitcher is produced on an asclepiadaceous plant 

 growing in India, the DiscJiidia raflesiana. "It is a creeping 

 plant having a long twining stem which is destitute of leaves 

 until near its summit, and this may be a hundred feet from the roots, 

 on which, therefore, it can scarcely depend for nourishment by 

 absorption of fluid from the ground. Its supplies of moisture from 

 a tropical atmosphere would be very uncertam if there were no pro- 

 vision for storing up what it occasionally collects ; but with such 

 an one it is furnished. The pitcher seems formed of a leaf, with 

 its edges rolled towards each other and adherent ; and the upper 

 end, or mouth, from which it is suspended is quite open, and 

 adapted to receive whatever moisture may descend from the air, 

 whether in the form of rain or dew. It is accordingly always found 

 to contain a considerable quantity of fluid, in which a number 

 of small black ants are generally seen. These are probably attracted 

 by it, and their decomposition may, as in the case of the Sarraee^iia, 

 render it yet more nutritious to the plant." J 



It is worthy of observation, from a geographical point of view, that 

 each main division of the globe is provided, among its vegetable 

 stores, with a special executioner of insects. Dionoea^ Sarracenia 

 and Darlmgtonia are told off to North America ; Heliamphora to 

 South America. In Asia we find Dischidia and Nepenthes. Australia 



* Macbride. (Transactions of the Linn. Soc. xiii). 

 + Wallace. (Malayan Archipelago). 

 J Carpenter, (Vegetable Physiology.) 



I 



