PINGUICULA. 163 



Chapter X. 



PINGUICULA. 



The pinguiculas, or butterworts, are carnivorous 

 plants, and closely related to the utricularias, but to a 

 casual observer they do not at all resemble each other. 

 The utricularias usually grow in water, and have finely 

 dissected leaves, and little stomach-like sacs, into which 

 small insects are entrapped, from which they never es- 

 cape any mofe than they would from the stomach of 

 an animal ; but the pinguiculas grow on land, and en- 

 trap insects on their large broad leaves, which are con- 

 verted into stomachs, when they secrete a fluid corre- 

 sponding to the gastric juice in the stomach of animals. 

 The leaves lie flat on the ground in the form of a ro- 

 sette, and are always moist, and feel greasy to the 

 touch, from which it takes both its common and scien- 

 tific name — -pinguis being the Latin for fat. 



At the Worth we have but one representative of this 

 genus — Pingtiicula vulgaris — and this is scarce, grow- 

 ing only in a few places on wet rocks. In the summer 

 of 1875 specimens of this species were sent me from 

 Cornell University, on which I made observations and 

 found it to be carnivorous, as I had been previously 



