CALIFORNIA PITCHERPLANT 



Chrysamphora calif ornica (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 Saracenias. The pitcher, often two 

 feet tall, has leafy appendages growing from its mouth, the whole 

 suggesting the head of a cobra. These appendages are somewhat 

 trough-like, and insects traveling along them to collect the nectar 

 secreted there are unsuspectingly led to the brink of the hollow 

 leaves. Many of these fall in and are digested, contributing to the 

 nourishment 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 



