20 



PITCHER PLANT. 



The Pitcher Plant is our most in- 

 teresting representative of so-called 

 carnivorous or insectivorous plants. 

 It belongs to a small family of bog- 

 inhabiting plants having hollow 

 leaves. Peat bogs and spongy, mossy 

 swamps are its favorite haunts, and 

 to such places we must go during 

 late May or June if we are to see the 

 unusual and handsome blossoms. 

 Each individual flower hangs in an 

 inverted position from the top of a 

 long slender hollow scape growing 

 from the root. They are unusual 

 both in form and coloring as the ac- 

 companying picture shows. Interest- 

 ing as the flowers are, it is the leaves that must claim the 

 most of our attention- — hollow pitchers radiating in all direc- 

 tions. They are nearly always partially filled with water, 

 some of which must be rain water received through the open- 

 ing and some of which is a natural fluid secreted by the 

 plant. This fluid is sweet and some claim intoxicating while 

 others say it acts as an anaesthetic. In either case it is 

 quite fatal to the insect endeavoring to partake of it. En- 

 trance to the pitcher is easy over the hairs which all point 

 downward, around the brim ; once beyond these, the crea- 

 ture slides down the slippery side to the water and is unable 

 to crawl back or to fly upward once the wings have become 

 wet. Decomposing bodies of many species of insects are 

 often to be found in these pitchers, the resulting products 

 being absorbed by the plant. 



The Pitcher Plant drowns its victims but our Sundews, 

 which are common in sandy soil and often along roadsides, 

 entangle theirs in the tiny sticky drops that exude from the 

 tips of the many hairs covering the surface of the rounded 

 leaves ; the leaf then slowly furls and actually digests its 

 victim by means of its gastric juices. 



