293 



iv. 263), are aptly illustrated by the appearance, without note or com- 

 ment, of this highly interesting paper nearly seventeen years after it 

 was written, and more than five years since it was read before the 

 Society. Mr. Griffith refers to " the commonly adopted opinion," as 

 advocated by Dr. Lindley in his ' Outlines of the First Principles of 

 Botany,' and in his ' Introduction to the Natural Orders,' namely, 

 " that the pitcher is a modification of the petiole, and the lid or oper- 

 culum of the lamina ;" and this is doubtless correct, with regard to 

 such ascidia as occur on Sarracenia and Nepenthes. But the author 

 does not appear to be aware that in the ' Introduction to Botany,' 

 published in 1832, two years before the date of his own paper, Dr. 

 Lindley explicitly makes a distinction between the pitchers of Sarra- 

 cenia and Nepenthes, and those of Dischidia, staling that while the 

 former are modifications of the petiole, the latter are formed from 

 leaves ; he does not indeed say from the lamina, but from their being 

 placed in contrast with the petiole, it is evident that he considers the 

 pitchers of the Dischidia to be modifications of that portion of the 

 leaf; and this opinion, which is the one now generally received by 

 botanists, is undoubtedly correct. 



In the Sarracenia, indeed, these pitchers, which are radical and 

 sessile, may be distinctly seen to be formed by the very deep chan- 

 nelling of the leaf-stalks ; in the Nepenthes, or Chinese pitcher-plant, 

 the pitcher is more complex and curious in its construction. The 

 petiole, soon after it quits the stem, spreads into a broad leafy phyl- 

 lodium, which seems to perform the functions of the true leaf; it then 

 contracts, and forms a round, twining, tendril-like cord, of several 

 inches in length ; and again expands, and becomes hollowed out, 

 so as to form a very elegant and capacious receptacle. The mouth 

 of this is guai'ded by a separate little leafy cover, which is connected 

 with the pitcher by a distinct joint; this cover or lid being regarded 

 as the true lamina of the leaf. In the pitchers of Cephalotus utricu- 

 laris, or the monkey-cups of S. America, the petiole would seem to 

 form the lid, and the pitcher itself to be composed of the hollowed 

 lamina, which hangs from it by a hinge. In Marcgraavia and Noran- 

 tea, there are also pitchers which are formed of bracts in a similarly 

 modified condition of involution and cohesion. 



Lindley, in the second edition of his ' Introduction to Botany,' 

 quotes an interesting passage from Low's Borneo, as serving to corro- 

 borate a statement made by a German botanist, in favour of the idea 

 that the pitchers of these plants may in reality be petioles hollowed 

 out near their extremity. It seems to be the earliest leaves of seed- 



