CALIFORNIA PITCHERPLANT 
Chrysamphora californica (Torrey) Greene 
California pitcherplant is the only member of the Pitcherplant 
Family growing west of the Mississippi Valley. It is quite as curious 
a plant as its eastern relatives, the Sarracenias. The pitcher, often two 
feet tall, has leafy appendages growing from its mouth, the whole 
suggesting the head of a cobra. These appendages ate somewhat 
trough-like, and insects traveling along them to collect the nectar 
secreted there ate unsuspectingly led to the brink of the hollow 
leaves. Many of these fall in and are digested, contributing to the 
noutishment of the plant. The flower presents an almost equally 
strange appearance. | 
The plants grow in abundance in their favorite localities, the bogs 
of northern California, where this specimen was obtained, and adja- 
cent Oregon. 
PLATE 390 
