SARRACENIA PSITTACINA, TARROT-HEADED PITCHER-PLANT. 23 



veins (which I omitted to mention) are well expressed by 

 venoso-reticulatis. In my former account the description which I 

 gave of the longitudinal wing is faulty. Instead of lanceolate, the 

 term semi-lanceolate would have better conveyed the idea I 

 intended — broad above, narrowing to a point below." We give 

 this litde piece of history from Croom, in order that moderns 

 may see what difficuldes the early botanists had in searching for 

 the facts, and how thankful we may be that their labors have 

 made matters so clear and plain for us. 



That the plant is variable we can well imagine after readincr 

 what Croom and Chapman say, and comparing it with our 

 plate, which is a faithful copy of one growing in the Cambridge 

 Botanical Garden, which has not the white spots nor purple 

 veins. The leaves in our plate are however very young, as 

 this species flowers among the earliest, and while the new 

 growth is being made. Mr. A. P. Garber says, in the " Botan- 

 ical Gazette," that he has seen it nearly in flower at Pilatka, 

 in Florida, on the i6th of February. 



The broad wing of the leaf in the Parrot pitcher-plant, as 

 referred to by the botanical authorities, is one of the most 

 striking features of this species. As will be seen by our plate 

 the leaf is nearly all wing, and there is scarcely a tubular portion 

 enough left to warrant us in calling it a pitcher at all. As our 

 readers know, the pitchers in Sarracenia have been supposed to 

 be special contrivances to catch insects to aid in nourishing the 

 plant. Mr. Nuttall scouted this idea. He says: "The tubes 

 are commonly crowded with dead flies and other insects, perish- 

 ing in imprisonment by one of the wonderful but simple acci- 

 dents of nature, — a lesson for the incautious, — but no proof of 

 instinct or necessity in the passive Sai^raccnia, which could 

 probably well maintain its vegetadon without the aid of dead 

 insects — a remark equally applicable to many other plants 

 which accidentally prove fatal lo insects, such as the wonderful 

 Dioncea, which in its native swamps as frequently catches straws 

 as flies, and will equally enfold anything, so subject is it in this 



