TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 107 
Perhaps if the Droseracee were an isolated case of a group of plants exhibiting 
propensities of this kind, there might be some reason for such a criticism. But I 
think I shall be able to show you that this is by no means the case. We have 
now reason to believe that there are many instances of these carnivorous habits in 
different parts of the vegetable kingdom, and among plants which have nothing 
else in common. 
As another illustration I will take the very curious group of Pitcher-plants . 
peculiar to the New World. And here also I think we shall find it most conve- 
nient to follow the historical order in the facts. 
SARRACENIA, 
The genus Sarracenia consists of eight species, all similar in habit, and all natives 
of the eastern States of North America, where they are found more especially in 
bogs, and eyen in places covered with shallow water. Their leaves, which give 
them a character entirely their own, are pitcher-shaped or trumpet-like, and are 
collected in tufts springing immediately from the ground ; and they send up at the 
flowering-season one or more slender stems bearing each a solitary flower. This 
has a singular aspect, due to a great extent to the umbrella-like expansion in 
which the style terminates; the shape of this, or perhaps of the whole flower, 
| rain ele first English settlers to give to the plant the name of Side-saddle 
ower *, 
Sarracenia purpurea is the best Inown species. About ten years ago it enjoyed 
an evanescent notoriety, from the fact that its rootstock was proposed as a remedy 
for small-pox. It is found from Newfoundland southward to Florida, and is fairly 
hardy under open air cultivation in the British Isles, Atthe commencement of the 
seventeenth century, Clusius published a figure of it, from a sketch which found 
its way to Lisbon and thence to Parist. Thirty years later Johnson copied this in 
his edition of Gerard’s ‘ Herbal,’ hoping “ that some or other that travel into foreign 
arts may find this elegant plant, and know it by this small expression, and bring 
it home with them, so that we may come to a perfecter knowledge thereof” {. A 
few years afterwards this wish was gratified. John Tradescant the younger found 
the plant in Virginia, and succeeded in bringing it home alive to England§. It 
was also sent to Paris from Quebec by Dr. Sarrazin, whose memory has been com- 
memorated in the name of the genus by Tournefort'||. 
The first fact which was observed about the pitchers was, that when they grew 
they contained water. But the next fact which was recorded about them was 
curiously mythical. Perhaps Morrison, who is responsible for it, had no favourable 
opportunities of studying them, for he declares them to be, what is by no means 
really the case, intolerant of cultivation (“respuere culturam videntur’’), He speaks 
of the lid, which in all the species is tolerably rigidly fixed, as being furnished hy 
providence with a hinge]. This idea was adopted by Linnzus**, and somewhat 
amplified by succeeding writers, who declared that in dry weather the lid closed 
over the mouth, and checked the loss of water by evaporation, Catesby, in his 
fine work on the Natural History of Carolina, supposed that these water-receptacles 
might “serve as an asylum or secure retreat for numerous insects, from frogs and 
other animals which feed on them” +}; and others followed Linnzus in regarding 
the pitchers as reservoirs for birds and other animals, more especially in times of 
drought—“ preebet aquam sitientibus aviculis” tf. 
The superficial teleology of the last century was easily satisfied, without looking 
far for explanations ; but it is just worth while pausing for a moment to observe 
* Miller, ‘Figures of Plants described in the Gardeners’ Dictionary,’ ii. p. 161. 
+ Rariorum plantarum historia (1601), p. Lxxxii. 
{ The ‘ Herbal,’ enlarged by Th. Johnson (1633), p. 412. 
§ Parkinson’s ‘ Theatrum botanicum’ (1640), p. 1235, 
|| Instiffitiones rei herbaria (1719), p. 657. 
4 Plantarum Historia (1699), vol. iii, p. 533. 
** Hortus Cliffortianus (1737), p. 497. 
tt Vol. ii. p. 69 (1754). 
tt Prelectiones in ordines naturales plantarum (1792), p. 316; see also Miller, ‘ Figures, 
&e.,’ p. 161. 
