1885.] How the Pitcher Plant got its Leaves. 575 
the bottom of the pitcher so as to retain and eventually convert the 
insects caught into nutritious material for the plant. This secre- 
tion would become a further necessity, and its character would 
be otherwise changed when, by a change in the nature of the 
hood, rain was excluded from the cavity. Finally, as a further 
lure to insects appendages brightly or curiously colored would 
arise and assume a form calculated to attract them. 
That these were the steps leading from the simplest to the 
most complex form of pitcher is shown in the actual forms living 
to-day. There can LS 
hardly be a better illus- j 
tration of the theory of 
descent with modifica- 
tion than is found in 
this one family. It be- 
comes, therefore, a mat- 
ter of peculiar interest 
to still further continue 
the study, and to inves- 
tigate the causes which 
led to the peculiarities 
of the flowers they 
possess, and likewise to 
study the reasons for 
their present geograph- 
ical distribution. 
The-flowers of Heli- 
amphora are described 
as being regular, with Fic, 10.—Sarracenia. 
four, five or perhaps, at times, six sepals, no petals, an indefinable 
number of stamens, and a single, entire pistil (Fig. 9). There 
are one or two flowers on a bracted scape. In the flowers of all 
the species of Sarracenia a peculiar modification of the pistil is 
observed. Along with the five sepals and five petals, it is found 
that the pistil has assumed a broad, umbrella-like shape (Fig. 10) 
with the stigmatic surfaces at the ends of the rays. These are 
five in number and extend upwards as the flower hangs. A single 
flower is at the top of a naked scape. The flower of Darlingtonia 
(Fig. 11) is-solitary at the top of a bracted scape, has five sepals 
and five petals, only twelve or fifteen stamens and a style with a 
five-rayed stigma. 
