300 PITCHER OF A TULIP. [BOOK i. 



which, as the leaves developed themselves, have become gra- 

 dually smaller on each new leaf, finally disappear altogether 

 when the plant climbs into the trees. This formation of the 

 pitcher may afford an instructive lesson to the naturalist, as, 

 though not to the same extent, the principle is perceptible in 

 all of this curious tribe, the leaves of seedlings and weak 

 plants always producing the largest pitchers." 



Professor Morren has, however, expressed a different 

 opinion respecting these pitchers. He considers the cuculli- 

 form pitcher of plants as a variation in form of the blade of 

 the leaf. " The leaf coheres by its margins, and above, abso- 

 lutely as in the formation of carpels, which made me say 

 [formerly] that the ascidium is a tendency to the floral form. 

 Since this period new facts have confirmed the theory. 

 During my stay at Newcastle, in Northumberland, at the 

 meeting of the British Association, I had an opportunity of 

 studying the different preparations of monstrosities which 

 the Rev. W. Hincks of York, known by his ' Monograph 

 of the CEnotherse/ had brought there. Amongst these speci- 

 mens were two of the most remarkable accidental ascidia, 

 which permit us to classify these extraordinary deviations. 

 One was on a specimen of Tulipa gesneriana. The leaf 

 which, as is well known, sheaths the peduncle in this plant, 

 had cohered at its free margins along its whole length, so 

 that the outer surface of the pitcher thus formed was always 

 the under surface of the leaf. But it resulted also from the 

 complete cohesion of the margins of this organ that no aper- 

 ture allowed of any communication between the outward air 

 and that inclosed in its cavity. Nevertheless a flower and its 

 peduncle were inclosed in this cavity, and the perianth was 

 not less finely coloured through this envelope than are the 

 petals of Papaver rhoeas under the thick tunics of their 

 caducous calyx. As the flower developed, it was necessary 

 that the peduncle should grow larger, which it did to a 

 greater degree than the ascidimorphous leaf, which remained 

 small; but then it was also necessary that the peduncle 

 should twist itself, or that the ascidium should burst. The 

 peduncle prevailed, and the ascidium opened ; but not as would 

 have been supposed, by a longitudinal rupture occasioned 



