144 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



margin of the orifice of the pitcher, each lobe being from 1 to 

 2 inches long. I came upon the Darlingtonia, greatly to my 

 pleasure, on the north side of a hill, at an elevation of about 

 4000 feet, growing among Ledum bushes, and here and there 

 in sphagnum, and presenting at a little distance the appearance 

 of a great number of Jargonelle pears, with their larger ends 

 uppermost, at a distance of from 10 to 24 inches above the 

 ground. This resulted from the pitchers being quite turned 

 over at the top, so as to form a full rounded dome, and the 

 uppermost part of the pitcher being of a ripe pear yellow. 

 The plants grow in small bogs, from springs on the hillside ; 

 the soil peat resting on a quartz gravel. The plant is quite a 

 strong grower. I found one large colony growing so well 

 among common rushes that Darlingtonia' seemed to be quite 

 beating them in the struggle. I was too late for seeds, but 

 saw sundry stems 3 feet or more high, bearing empty seed 

 vessels as large as large walnuts. All the pitchers have a 

 spiral twist, which is much more marked towards the apex, 

 and in the large specimens. But perhaps the most remarkable 

 feature of the plant is its efficiency as a "fly-catcher." In the 

 houses about here the pitchers are regularly used in summer 

 for catching flies. Each of the developed pitchers that I cut 

 off had from 3 to 5 inches of various forms of insect life, dead 

 and closely packed in the lower part of its chamber. Pass a 

 sharp knife through a lot of brown pitchers withering round 

 an old plant, and the stumps resemble a number of tubes 

 densely packed with the remains of insects. What attracts 

 them is not so very clear, as the orifice is half hidden in the 

 turned-over head, and by its two-lobed appendage. But, by 

 raising the pitcher above the eye, and looking up into its dome, 

 often 3 inches through in fair specimens, it seems a curvilinear 

 roof of miniature panes set in a golden network. This is in 

 consequence of the greater portion of the upper part of the 

 pitcher being transparent in all the space between the veins, 

 though no one transparent spot is more than a line or two 

 across. Within the pitcher the surface is smooth for a little 

 way down ; then isolated hairs appear ; and soon the chamber 



