SARRACENIA PSITTACINA.—PARROT-HEADED PITCHER-PLANT. 2 3 
veins (which I omitted to mention) are well expressed by 
venoso-reticulatis, In my former account the description which I 
gave of the longitudinal wing is faulty. Instead of lanceolate, the 
term semi-lanceolate would have better conveyed the idea I 
intended—broad above, narrowing to a point below.” We give 
this little piece of history from Croom, in order that moderns 
may see what difficulties the early botanists had in searching for 
the facts, and how thankful we may be that their labors have 
made matters so clear and plain for us. 
That the plant is variable we can well imagine after reading 
what Croom and Chapman say, and comparing it with our 
plate, which is a faithful copy of one growing in the Cambridge 
Botanical Garden, which has not the white spots nor purple 
veins. The leaves in our plate are however very young, as 
this species flowers among the earliest, and while the new 
growth is being made. Mr. A. P. Garber says, in the “ Botan- 
ical Gazette, 
in Florida, on the 16th of February. 
The broad wing of the leaf in the Parrot pitcher-plant, as 
” 
that he has seen it nearly in flower at Pilatka, 
referred to by the botanical authorities, is one of the most 
striking features of this species. As will be seen by our plate 
the leaf is nearly all wing, and there is scarcely a tubular portion 
enough left to warrant us in calling it a pitcher at all. As our 
readers know, the pitchers in Savracenza have been supposed to 
be special contrivances to catch insects to aid in nourishing the 
plant. Mr. Nuttall scouted this idea. He says: “The tubes 
are commonly crowded with dead flies and other insects, perish- 
ing in imprisonment by one of the wonderful but simple acci- 
dents of nature,—a lesson for the incautious,—but no proof of 
instinct or necessity in the passive Sarracenia, which could 
probably well maintain its vegetation without the aid of dead 
insects—a remark equally applicable to many other plants 
which accidentally prove fatal to insects, such as the wonderful 
Dionea, which in its native swamps as frequently catches straws 
as flies, and will equally enfold anything, so subject is it in this 
