1883.] Pitcher Plants. 233 
PITCHER PLANTS. 
BY JOSEPH F. JAMES. | 
j lisek are two widely separated orders of plants known by 
the common name of pitcher plants, and they are perhaps, as 
widely separated in a natural classification as they are in their 
habitats. While one order is placed near the poppies and isa . 
native of America, the other is allied to the birthworts or the 
Aristolochias, and lives in the swamps of Southeastern Asia, and 
the islands of the Malay archipelago. The first of these orders is 
known scientifically as Sarraceniaceze, and includes but three 
‘genera; the other is Nepenthacez, with but one genus. Both of 
_ them are more or less familiar to persons interested in plants, and 
~ the latter always attracts attention by the peculiar appendage, like 
= abird’s nest to the eyes of some, which is suspended from the 
tip of the leaf. It is to the first of these orders, the members of 
which are, with a solitary exception, natives of the United States, 
that this paper is devoted. 
The genus Sarracenia, named in honor of Dr. Sarrazin, of 
Quebec, who first sent the plant and an account of it to Europe, 
comprises eight species, all but one of them being confined to the 
outhern States of our country. The one with the widest dis- 
= tribution, the well-known side-saddle flower, extends from near 
Florida, through the Atlantic Coast States to New England, and 
thence westward along the northern boundary of the country and 
in Canada, into British America. It lives in the cold swamps and 
bogs of the North, and its peculiar leaves and flowers have always 
been remarked by those who have collected or have seen them. 
inside of the hood of the leaf is covered with a closely set 
_ Mass of hairs, in all cases pointing downwards into the tube. In 
Astate of nature these aptly named pitchers are often half filled 
9 Water; and the water is generally so crowded with insects, 
ngor dead, and decaying, that the air in a swamp where 
numbers of the plants are growing is very offensive. 
< At the junction of the hood to the main portion of the leaf, the 
aes end abruptly, and the inside becomes very smooth and 
se This continues to about the middle of the pitcher, 
the another set of hairs is met with, this time not so stiff as at 
a top, but all of them still pointing downward toward the 
