DROSERACE.E. 197 



movements become languid, or the sensibility is altogether 

 exhausted, to be recovered only by a period of repose. The 

 scape, which is produced in April or May, is naked, simple, 

 or forked at the summit, bearing a small and umbel-like cyme 

 of pretty large greenish-white flowers. Bracts opposite, or 

 the lower scattered. Stipules none. (The foliage stains pa- 

 per with a brown -purple hue, much as does that of Drosera.) 



Etymology. Name from Aiuivrj, the mother of Venus. 



Geographical Distribution, &c. This truly wonderful plant abounds 

 in the savannas around Wilmington, North Carolina, and extends north- 

 ward as far as Newbern, and along the Cape Fear River nearly to Fayette- 

 ville. I extract, from an account published several years ago by my friend 

 the Rev. Mr. Curtis, who was long familiar with the plant in its native hab- 

 itat, the following particulars. 



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

 lower branches of the Santee in South Carolina. Dr. Bachman has received 

 it from Georgetown, South Carolina ; and Mr. Audubon informed me, with 

 the plant before us, that he has seen it in Florida, of enormous size [?]. I 

 think it not improbable, therefore, that it inhabits the savannas, more or 

 less abundantly, from the latter place to Newbern. It is found in great 

 abundance for many miles around Wilmington, in every direction. I ven- 

 ture a short notice of this interesting plant, as I am not aware that any pop- 

 ular description of it has been published in this country. The leaf, which is 

 the only curious part, springs from the root, spreading upon the ground, or 

 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 semicircular, about two thirds of an inch across, and 

 fringed around their edges with somewhat rigid cilia; or long hairs like eye- 

 lashes. It is very aptly compared to two upper eyelids joined at their bases. 

 Each side of the leaf is a little concave on the inner side, where are placed 

 three delicate, hairlike organs, in such an order, that an insect can hardly 

 traverse it without interfering with one of them, when the two sides sudden- 

 ly collapse and inclose the prey with a force surpassing an insect"s efforts to 

 escape. The fringe or hairs of the opposite sides of the leaf interlace, like 

 the fingers of the two hands clasped together. The sensitiveness resides 

 only in these hairlike processes on the inside, as the leaf may be touched or 

 pressed in any other part without sensible effects. The little prisoner is 

 not crushed and suddenly destroyed, as is sometimes supposed, for I have 

 often liberated captive flies and spiders, which sped away as fast as fear or 

 joy could hasten them. At other times I have found them enveloped in a 

 fluid of a mucilaginous consistence, which seems to act as a solvent, the in- 

 sects being more or less consumed in it. This circumstance has suggested 



