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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Edmund Spenser's "Astrophel", which is a lament for Sir 

 Phihp Sidney, we read : 



"Never again let lass put girlond on 

 Instead of girlond wear sad cypress now 

 And bitter elder, broken from the bough." 



PITCHER PLANTS 



By Mrs. G. T. Drennan. 



TT is difficult to see why the Sarracenias, which were named 

 for Dr. Sarrasin of Quebec, should be commonly called 

 side saddle flowers. Pitcher plant, huntsman's cup and trumpet 

 leaf, are descriptive names well merited from the construction 

 of the leaves. These are all radical from a perennial root, yel- 

 lowish or purplish green in color and form pitchers or elon- 

 g^ated cups of trumpet shape. The unique and beautiful flowers 

 are nodding, and borne on naked scapes ten inches or more 

 high. The calyx has five sepals with three colored persistent 

 bractlets at the base. The corolla has five fiddle-shaped petals, 

 arching over the greenish yellow styles and the stamens are 

 numerous. 



Sarraccma purpurea is the hardiest of the pitcher plants. 

 It grows in mossy bogs from Labrador and the Rocky Moun- 

 tains to the Gulf of Mexico. The curious pitcher-shaped leaves, 

 six to ten inches long", dilated upward, are constructed with a 

 usual broad wing" on one side and a hairv hood at the summit. 



Sarraccuia flazv, known as the yellow trumpet leaf, is 

 native to the Southern States. It has narrow^ winged and 

 hooded leaves, veined with yellow, and a yellow blossom. 



The California Pitcher Plant or Darlingfouia is the hand- 

 srnnest and at the same time the most curiously constructed of 

 our pitcher plants. The hollow twisted leaf is from ten to 



