SARRACENIA RUBRA. 

 RED-FLOWERED TRUMPET LEAF.— Walter's Sarkacenia. 



NATURAL ORDER, SARRACENL\CE/E. 



Sarracenia rubra, Walter. — Leaves elongated, erect, slender, narrowly winged, paler above, 

 and reticulated with purple veins; lamina ovate, erect, beak-pointed, tomenlose within ; 

 flowers reddish purple. Leaves ten to eighteen inches long, shorter than the scapes. 

 (Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States. See also Wood's Class- Book of Botany, 

 under .S". Gronovii.) 



HIS Species of the "Side-saddle flower" well illustrates a 

 point often made, that names may be misleading, and 

 that names which have no particular meaning so far as the appli- 

 cation to any character in the plant is concerned, are at least as 

 good as any. This particular species was named by Thomas 

 Walter, who published a history of the plants of the Carolinas in 

 1788. As Sarracenia rtcbra, it is the red-flowered Sarracenia, 

 naturally enough from Walter's name; but there are other Sar- 

 racenias as "red" as this, and the collector of wild flowers must 

 therefore remember when he reads of the "Red Sarracenia," that 

 it is merely "its name." Still, as it is just as well to avoid mis- 

 leading names, we propose to those who may wish a better name 

 than the only one so far known for it, that it be called "Walter's 

 Sarracenia." 



The Sarracenias are so unlike most other plants, that the 

 student is particularly interested in how they are made, and the 

 especial reasons for their peculiar structure. While, as Percival 

 says, generally 



" In flowers 

 The serpent hides his venom, and the sting 

 Of the dread insect lurks in fairest bowers," 



the case is reversed here. There is no lurking of dr(?ad insects 



'37) 



