24 SARKACENIA PSITTACINA. PARROT-HEADED PITCHER-PLANT. 



respect to the blindness of accident." It is not our purpose to 

 enter into any controversial questions in this work, but to give 

 enough of facts on all sides to enable the student to form judg- 

 ments for himself. Without therefore saying that the Pitcher- 

 plants are designed expressly to catch and use insects as food, we 

 may remark that Mr. Nuttall's argument does not prove that 

 they are not, for nature evidently loves to do any one thing in a 

 great variety of ways. It may even be questioned whether the 

 pitcher-leaved Sarracenias could maintain their vegetation quite 

 as well without the water and insects. It is interesting to note 

 how little leaf surface there is to act as in other plants. Scarcely 

 anything is left but the pitcher's lid capable of absorbing matter 

 from the atmosphere. Nature indeed seems to look on the 

 pitcher as a substitute for leaf surface. In our present species, 

 which has no insect-catching pitchers worth speaking of, she 

 seems to have thought it necessary to compensate for this 

 absence in the broad green wing, which is indeed the leaf of 

 an ordinary plant in all that relates to general functional power. 

 Having no pitcher, it had to have leaves. Arguments of this 

 kind are not however what the best botanists accept. Instead 

 of looking exclusively to what a plant may do by evident ability 

 from adaptation, what it actually does do is the safer field for 

 investigation. 



The Parrot pitcher-plant is confined to a small strip of our 

 great country, between Louisiana and Florida to Georgia. 



Explanations of the Plate.— i. Flowering plant with the newly pushing leaves. 2. The 

 broad wing. 3. Old leaf (of previous year), showing close resemblance to a parrot head. 

 4. Cut-off portion, showing the very narrow tube. 5. Showing the " five-cleft, umbrella 

 style" of Dr. Chapman. 



^^ JtJbrarjr 



