PINGUICULA LUTEA. 

 YELLOW BUTTERWORT 



NATURAL ORDER, LENTIBULARIACE.E, 



PiNGUicuLA LUTEA, Walter. — Leaves from ovate to oblong-ovate, an inch or two long; scapes 

 five to twelve inches high ; corolla an inch or less long ; the lobes longer than the short- 

 cnmpanulate tube with the saccate base, all or the lower and lateral usually t'our-lobed or 

 two-cleft with the divisions obcordate, or variously sinuate : spur subulate, as long as the 

 sac and tube; palate oblong, very salient, densely bearded. (Gray's Synoptical Flora 

 of North America. See' also Wood's Class-Book of Botany, and Chapman's Flora of 

 the Sottthern United States.) 



T is always interesting to know the origin of names, and 

 their meaning ; not so much because it is any great 

 guide to the knowledge of the plant itself, as that it keeps us 

 from error, and this is equal to knowledge. In connection with 

 our present subject we may note that the long known species of 

 Europe, Piiigiiiadazmlgaris, among its numerous English names 

 was known as the "Yorkshire Sanicle ; " and, misguided by this 

 name, a popular English medical work of the last century — the 

 "Botanalogia" by Salmon — figures the Sauicula Europo'a for the 

 true " Butterwort" which is the old Piiiguicula. It is possible 

 that there may be a similar misconception as to the origin of 

 the generic name Pinguiada. All our text-books tell us that it 

 is from pingiiis, Latin for fat, " the leaves being mostly greasy to 

 the touch, whence the name." But there is nothing particularly 

 greasy in the appearance or feel of the European Butterwort 

 more than in other familiar plants to suggest to the common 

 people any such special name for it. 



The botanical name, Pinguiciila, seems to have been first used 

 by Conrad Gesner, of Zurich, in Switzerland, who published in 



