LETTER XXXIV. 



VE>JUS'-FLY TRAP ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE 



OF LEAVES. 



(Plates XXXIV. and XXXV.) 



Are you acquainted with a most singular plant, the 

 Venus' Fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula), an inhabitant 

 of turfy and sandy bogs in the warmer parts of the 

 United States ?* If not, search for it immediately in 



* I copy the following account of Dionaea, in its American home, 

 from a work on the plants of North Carohna, by Mr. M. A. Curtis, as 

 quoted in the Companion to the Botanical Magazine. 



" The Dionaea muscipula is found as far north as Newbern, North 

 Carolina, and from the mouth of Cape Fear River nearly to Fayetteville. 

 Elliott says, on the authority of General Pinckney, that it grows along 

 the lower branches of the Santee, in South Carolind, and 1 think it is 

 not improbable that it inhabits the Savannahs more or less abundantly 

 from the latter place to Newbern. It is found in great plenty for many 

 miles around Wilmington in every direction. 



" I venture a short notice of this interesting and curious plant, not 

 being aware that any popular description of it has been published in 

 this country. The leaf, which is the only remarkable part, springs from 

 the root, spreading upon the ground, at a little elevation above it. It 

 is composed of a petiole, or stem with broad margins, like the leaf of the 

 orange tree, two to four inches long, which, at the end, suddenly expands 

 into a thick and somewhat rigid leaf, the two sides of which are semi- 

 circular, about two-thirds of an inch across, and fringed around their 

 edges with somewhat rigid ciliae, or long hairs, like eye-lashes. The 

 leaf, indeed, may be very aptly compared to two upper eyelids, joined at 



