90 PINGUICULA LUTE A. YELLOW BUTTE RWOKT. 



Basil, in 1541, a history of plants. It had long- been known as 

 " Butterwort " by the English, and it would be quite natural for 

 the common name to suggest the botanical one, and " Pingui- 

 cula " would regularly follow. But "Butterwort" does not seem 

 to have been derived from the greasy feel of the leaves, but 

 from the power possessed by the plant of rapidly turning cream 

 into butter. Linneeus observed that the soft white hair which 

 covered the leaf secreted a olutinous fluid. These olutinous 

 leaves were put by the inhabitants of northern Europe into a 

 sieve, and then the fresh milk of the reindeer passed through, 

 and in a day or so afterwards it became a firm buttery mass. 

 This butter was a popular article of diet with the Swedes, and it 

 is as fair a deduction that a plant which actually made butter, 

 should thereby earn the name of " butterwort," or butterplant, 

 as that it comes from the leaves having a greasy feel which might 

 suggest any oily, greasy feel, as well as that derived from butter. 

 Moreover, old Gerarde, one of the earliest writers on English 

 gardening, calls the plant "Butter-root," which he would scarcely 

 do, if the "butter" was simply in relation to the greasy feel of 

 the leaves. As a rule, it would be just as well if names meant 

 nothing ; but when they are supposed to be connected with the 

 history of the plant, it becomes important that the history should 

 be scrupulously correct. It may be noted here that Gesner 

 supposed the European Pinguicula was the plant referred to by 

 Pliny as Dodecatheon, but this name was subsequently transferred 

 by Linnaeus to an American genus of plants having little relation 

 to this. 



Pinguicula has become a plant of more than usual interest 

 since Mr. Darwin discovered that the acrid excretion of the 

 leaves catches insects and in a manner digests them. Besides 

 that, a considerable amount of motion is exercised by the leaves 

 when catchino- insects. JNIr. Darwin nodced that the Q-lands 

 secreted much more freely when excited by touch; and the leaves 

 which had the glands the most sensitive in this respect were 

 those which exhibited the most motion. The modon is, however, 



