PLANTS AND ANIMALS 71 



of honey by the epidermal cells upon the under surface of the 

 lid, and on the rim round the mouth of each pitcher. The 

 swollen and often delicately-fluted rim, in particular, drips and 

 glitters with the sugary juice, and it would be permissible in 

 this connection to speak of a honeyed mouth and sweet lips in 

 the most literal sense of the words. Animals which suck honey 

 from the lips of Nepenthes pitchers wander, as they do so, only 

 too readily upon the interior surface of the orifice. But the 

 inner face is smooth and precipitous, and rendered so slippery 

 by a bluish coating of wax that not a few of the alighted guests 

 slip down to the bottom of the pitcher and fall into the liquid 

 there collected. Many of them perish in a short time; others 

 try to save themselves by climbing up the internal face of the 

 pitcher, but they always slip again on the polished, wax-coated 

 zone, and tumble back once more to the bottom." In some 

 species the inwardly bent rim of the pitcher is fringed with 

 sharp teeth which curve downwards and facilitate entry but 

 forbid exit 



Another very interesting Pitcher- Plant (Sarracenia variolaris\ 

 native to the marshes of Alabama, Carolina, and Florida, presents 

 arrangements of somewhat different kind. It possesses a rosette 

 of elongated hollow leaves, of which the ends bend sharply over 

 like hoods. The narrow opening of a pitcher is just under the 

 hood, from which a little flap hangs down. Allurement by colour 

 is not wanting, for though most of each pitcher is green, its 

 hooded top is veined with red, and there are purple blotches 

 here and there. In this region, too, there are numerous trans- 

 lucent patches between the veins, which from inside the pitcher 

 must look like openings or " windows ". As in Nepenthes, 

 honey is provided on the inner surface of the hood and round 

 the margin of the aperture, from which a sugary ridge runs 

 right down to the ground, serving as an attractive but fatal 

 pathway to many wingless insects, especially ants. The pitcher 

 is a pitfall of the deadliest kind, for its interior is clothed with 

 slippery overlapping scales, of which the narrow pointed ends 

 are directed downwards, so that insects, once imprisoned, are 

 quite unable to climb out again. And if a winged insect tries 

 to fly out it naturally makes for the apparent windows in the 

 hood, for the actual opening faces downwards and is veiled in 

 darkness, and in most cases falls back exhausted into the putrid 



