348 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



The Northern pitcher-plant presents all 

 the remarkable peculiarities of the genus, and 

 it is the one selected for description here. Its 

 cup-like leaves are never a yard long, as is 

 sometimes the case with the Southern plant 

 a fact which, in all probability. i> responsi- 

 ble for the vernacular name of "trumpet," 

 which has been applied to it and passed along 

 to its more modest relative. 



For miles around most of our Northern 

 cil.es, the pitcher-plant is now nearly en- 

 tirely extinct, in its wild state. This has 

 been brought about by us having been, for 

 many years, collected in great numbers for 

 private ponds and "decorative purposes in 

 homes. It is easily pulled up, roots and all, 

 and transplants readily. This being the 

 case, people delight in gathering a few of 

 them to place in shallow trays with moss 

 and water, making veranda ornaments of 



CHARACTERISTIC VARIETY 



Eig. 5 Various forms of leaves of pitcher-plants, trans- 

 planted to indoors receptacles; the pitchers gradually 

 disappear. 



them. With due care they will thrive under 

 such treatment for an entire summer. Final- 

 ly, after the advent of the automobile, many 

 could visit the more remote peat-bogs and 

 swamps with ease, and thousands of pitcher- 

 plants were pulled up by the roots by such 

 vandals, simply to make, in any particular in- 



stance, a big bunch of the flowers. Altogether too many of our wild 

 flowers are being exterminated at the present time in the same man- 

 ner; but, fortunately, the plant is wonderfully abundant in some dis- 

 tricts. For example, far from towns and cities, it is sometimes 

 found growing in great profusion in the boggy pools along railroads 

 and highways, and in 

 s u c h localities one 

 may find specimens of 

 all of the many forms 

 it assumes. By this I 

 mean that some of the 

 plants will be found 

 to be very small and 

 dainty, while others 

 will be large, coarse 

 and spreading. Still 

 others will have the 

 flower-stems very tall, 

 while in some they 

 are short and incon- 

 spicuous. 



Very rarely is the 

 upper end of the root 

 of the pitcher-plant 

 extensive, while from 

 it spring all the stems 

 of the leaves as well 

 as flower stems. 1 

 have never found 

 more than two or 

 three of the latter on 

 any one plant in one 

 hundred per cent of the plants in any bog the stem is single, with its 

 upper end bearing the single flower. These characters are well shown 

 in several of my illustrations, particularly in Figures 2 and 4. 



Usually, the flower-stem ranges in length from a few inches to a 

 foot ; never have I found one any taller than that. It is subcylindrical 

 in form ; moderately slender ; sap-green in color ; often straight, but 

 sometimes exhibiting various moderate flexures (Fig. 1). I have 

 not yet met with a stem having more than one flower at its upper end, 

 and almost invariably the face of the flower looks downward at a 

 moderate angle. Neltje Blanchan, who claims to know of pitcher- 

 plants that had stems two feet in length, says that the flowers "are 

 solitary and rodding," while all those collected by me were very 

 firmly attached to the ends of their stems. That the flower can be 

 as much as two inches in diameter, is in agreement with my own 

 observations. Her figure of the plant is a marvelously handsome 

 specimen ; but it seems to be no more than two plants having a com- 

 mon root below, with an unusual number of flower-stems springing 

 from them. Sometimes a single plant will spread tremendously in 

 an horizontal direction the "trumpets" being larger and larger the 

 further they are removed trom the center; in such cases the flower- 

 stem may be of no great height (Fig. 2). 



It is not altogether an easy matter to describe the flower of the 

 pitcher-plant without employing the scientific terms of the profes- 

 sional botanist ; so it is all the more fortunate that I had such a 

 wealth of material at hand when I came to make my photograph of 

 these flowers, which is here reproduced in Figure 1. A glance at 

 that array of beauties should be quite sufficient to give one a very cor- 

 rect idea in regard to the form, size, and coloration of the flower 



Eig. 1- 



THE FLOWER-HEADS 



-Six perfect flower-heads of the pitcher-plant. 



