FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



CHAPTER IV. 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS — SIDE-SADDLE FLOWERS. 



The Pitcher-plants, properly so called, are natives of 

 the Old World, their representatives in the New 

 World are called Side-saddle flowers, or Sarracenias. 

 In the true Pitcher-plants the curious pitchers are 

 suspended at the ends of the leaves, of which they 

 are prolongations, but in the Sarracenias the entire 

 leaf is folded and modified into a kind of pitcher. 

 The eight North American species are found in the 

 eastern States, in bogs, and in places covered with 

 shallow water. Their leaves, which give them a 

 character entirely their own, are pitcher-shaped, or 

 rather they are trumpet-shaped, standing erect, col- 

 lected in tufts, and springing immediately from the 

 ground. They send up at the flowering season one 

 or more slender stems, each of which bears a single 

 flower, which is itself of a peculiar appearance and 

 character, with a fancied resemblance to a side- 

 saddle, and hence the popular name. It has been 

 shown that there are at least two different kinds, or 

 types, of pitcher in this group of plants. In one kind 

 the mouth is open and the lid stands erect, so that the 



