DROSERACE^E. (SUNDEW FAMILY.) 47 



Order 17. DROSERACEJE. (Sundew Family.) 



Bog-herbs, mostly glandular-haired, with regular hypogynous flowers, pen- 

 iamerous and withering-persistent calyx, corolla, and stamens, the anthers 

 fixed by their middle and turned outwards, and a 1-celled pod with twice as 

 many separate styles or sligi7ias as there are parietal placentas. — Calyx im- 

 bricated. Petals convolute. Seeds numerous, anatropous, with a short 

 and minute embryo at the base of the albumen. — Leaves circinate in the 

 bud, i. e. rolled up from the apex to the base as in Ferns. (A small fam- 

 ily, of no known qualities, except a slight bitterness, &c. ; the Sundews 

 impart a purple stain to paper in which they are dried.) Only one genus 

 within our limits, viz. 



1. DROSEBA, L. Sundew. 



Stamens 5. Styles 3, or sometimes 5, deeply 2-parted so that they are taken 

 for 6 or 10, slender; stigniatose above on the inner face. Pod globular or ob- 

 long, 3- (rarely 5-) valved, the valves bearing the numerous seeds on their mid- 

 dle for the whole length. — Low perennials; the leaves clothed with leddish 

 gland-bearing bristles, in our species all in a tuft at the base ; the naked scape 

 bearing the flowers in a 1-sidcd raceme-like inflorescence, which nods at the un- 

 developed apex, so that the fresh-blown flower (which opens only in sunshine) 

 is always highest. (The glands of the leaves exude drops of a clear fluid, glit- 

 tering like dew-drops, whence the name, from bpoaepos, dewy.) 



1. I>. rotaisittifdlia, L. (Round-leaved Sundew.) Leaves orbicu- 

 lar, abruptly nan-owed into the spreading hairy petioles; seeds spindle-shaped, 

 the coat loose and chaff-like; flowers white, the parts sometimes in sixes. — 

 Peat-bogs, common, especially northward. July -Aug. (Eu.) 



2. I>. lOilgifdilia, L. Leaves spatulate-oblong , tapering into the long radier 

 erect naked petioles ; seeds oblong, with a rough close coat ; flowers white. 

 (D. intermedia, Hayne.) — Bogs, chiefly northward and eastward. June- Aug. 

 — Plant raised on its prolonged caudex when growing in water. (Eu.) 



3. I>. Biaicfcris, Goldie. (Slender Sundew.) Leaves linear, obtuse, 

 the blade (2' -3' long, scarcely 2" wide) on naked erect . petioles about the same 

 length ; seeds oblong, with a smooth and perfectly close coat ; flowers white. — 

 Shore of Lake Superior. July. 



4. I>. iilifoi'mis, Raf. (Thread-leaved Sundew.) Leaves very long 

 and filiform, erect, with no distinction between the blade and the stalk ; seeds 

 spindle-shaped; flowers numerous, purple rose-color (^' broad). — Wet sand, 

 near the coast, Plymouth, Massachusetts, to New Jersey, Delaware, and south- 

 ward. Aug. — Scapes 6'- 12' high ; and the singular leaves nearly as long. 



DionAa muscipula, Ellis, the Venus's Fly-trap, — so noted for the ex- 

 traordinary irritability of its leaves, closing forcibly at the touch, — is a native 

 of the sandy savannas of the eastern part of North Carolina. It differs in sev- 

 eral respects from the character of the order given above; the stamens being 15, 

 the styles united into one, and the seeds all at the base of the pod. 



