452 CONCLUSION. Cuar. XVIIL 
examined, but none could be found. What are we to 
infer from these facts? Did the three species just 
named, like their close allies, the several species of 
Utricularia, aboriginally possess bladders on their 
rhizomes, which they afterwards lost, acquiring in 
their place utriculiferous leaves? In support of this 
view it may be urged that the bladders of Genlisea 
filiformis appear from their small size and from the 
fewness of their quadrifid processes to be tending 
towards abortion; but why has not this species 
acquired utriculiferous leaves, like its congeners ? 
Conciusion.—It has now been shown that many 
species of Utricularia and of two closely allied genera, 
inhabiting the most distant parts of the world— 
Europe, Africa, India, the Malay Archipelago, Austra- 
lia, North and South America—are admirably adapted 
for capturing by two methods small aquatic or terres- 
trial animals, and that they absorb the products of 
their decay. 
Ordinary plants of the higher classes procure the 
requisite inorganic elements from the soil by means 
of their roots, and absorb carbonic acid from the 
atmosphere by means of their leaves and stems. 
But we have seen in a previous part of this work 
that there is a class of plants which digest and 
afterwards absorb animal matter, namely, all the 
Droseracee, Pinguicula, and, as discovered by Dr. 
Hooker, Nepenthes, and to this class other species 
will almost certainly soon be added. These plants 
can dissolve matter out of certain vegetable sub- 
stances, such as pollen, seeds, and bits of leaves. No 
doubt their glands likewise absorb the salts of am- 
monia brought to them by the rain. It has also been 
shown that some other plants can absorb ammonia by 
