i88o-i88i.] 59 



although sensitive to the touch of a minute struggling insect, 

 are rarely inflected if touched by a pin or falling water, and 

 this is useful to the plant, as it would be a great evil if it closed 

 when touched by rain or grass, as the re-expansion takes some 

 time, and the leaf cannot catch its prey unless expanded. 

 Drosera anglica, and D. intermedia, both natives of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, were then described ; next, the Drosera capensis, 

 differing but little from them. Drosera filiformis, which grows 

 so abundantly in New Jersey as almost to cover the ground, 

 catches an extraordinary number of small and large insects, 

 even great flies of the genus Asilus, moths, and butterflies. 

 Drosera dichotama is an almost gigantic Australian species. 

 The rush-like footstalks are about twenty inches in length, the 

 blade seven inches, which bifurcates at the junction with the 

 footstalk. Pinguicula vulgaris, also a British plant, grows in 

 damp, peaty places, bears thick, oblong, light green leaves, 

 which are deeply concave in the central ones, and the outer flat 

 or convex, lying close to the ground, the margins of the leaves 

 incurved. The texture of the leaf is thick and succulent ; its 

 upper surface is studded with glands, from which is secreted a 

 colourless sticky fluid. If a row of dead flies or minute pieces 

 of meat are put on a leaf, parallel to the curled up margin, the 

 edge of the leaf will gradually curl over still more, and if the 

 objects are not too big, or too far oif, it will in time cover them ; 

 the leaves remain incurved but a short time, even although the 

 exciting object is left upon them. Drosophyllum lusitanicum, 

 a rare plant found on the sides of dry hills near Oporto, in 

 Portugal, captures a vast number of flies. The villagers hang 

 it up in their cottages for this purpose, calling it the fly catcher. 

 In the case of Drosera the insect is captured by sticking to 

 the glands and carried by their movement to the centre of the 

 leaf, in Drosophyllum this is effected by the crawling of the 

 insect, as from its wings being clogged it cannot fly. Dionicea 

 muscipula^ venus flycatcher, is perhaps the most interesting of 

 all the carnivorous plants, from the shape of its leaves and the 

 extreme rapidity of its movements, which can be easily seen. 



