PITCHER-PLANT FAMILY. 207 



tively small leaves which grow in a tuft about its base. They are grace- 

 fully shaped, having a broad wing, and are lined with white spots and 

 marked with purple. The rounded lid, thought to resemble the head of a 

 parrot, has an incurved beak which almost closes on the small opening of 

 the tube and makes it, therefore, almost impossible for an insect to escape 

 from its hold. From the midst of these leaves the flowering scape arises to 

 a height of fourteen or fifteen inches and in April and May bears a reddish 

 purple, nodding flower, deep and rich in colour. 



S.fldva, trumpets, trumpet-leaf or watches as the plant is respectively 

 called, is the largest and a most splendid representative of the family. Its 

 great lemon-yellow flowers with their oblanceolate, rather narrow petals, are 

 often five inches in diameter, while the trumpet-shaped and conspicuously 

 veined leaves grow even two or three feet long. Their wing is very narrow, 

 and they do not broaden to as great an extent towards their summit as do 

 some others. The slender pointed lid is yellow, touched with red and purple 

 and softly downy within. In April and May the plant blooms, fairly 

 illuminating many bogs and low barrens from Florida to North Carolina. 



Along the Little River above De Sota Falls, near Valley Head"in Alabama, 

 and in swamps of the Sand mountain region there is growing a form of 

 Sarracenia flava. Its trumpets, however, are more expanded at their 

 summits, and they have a broader, more rounded lid. The flowers also are 

 somewhat smaller than those of the regular species. 



S. varzoldris, spotted trumpet-leaf, is found from Florida to North 

 Carolina, and especially about Summerville, near Charleston, it carpets in 

 May the swamps with masses of lemon-yellow bloom. Its flowers are large, 

 with long obovate, or oblanceolate petals and have a spreading style that is 

 truly umbrella-shaped. The quaintly formed leaves are very long, erect 

 and with a wing broad at the base but which tapers towards the summit 

 until it is quite narrow. The ovate lid is concave, or curved in such a way 

 as almost to close over the opening. That these leaves, besides being 

 veined with purple, have on their yellow surfaces innumerable white spots 

 has been the cause of the plant's common name. 



S. purpurea, pitcher-plant, side saddle flower, or Indian tea-kettle, the 

 latter a quaint and little known name, is a common species and the one on 

 which the genus was founded. It is in fact very generally known as a curi- 

 osity over the country, its range extending from Florida to Canada. The 

 leaves which grow in tufts about the base, taper into a reddish petiole. 

 They are inflated towards the summit and rather suggest little pitchers, or 

 ewers. Although glabrous on the outside, their inner side and the lid are 

 covered with stiff white hairs which point downward. Of this species, the 

 bloom, though small, is very handsome, occurring deep purple, crimson, or 



