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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that it can only be appropriately applied to those of Nepenthes 

 and Cephalotus ; probably the "hood" of Sarracenia and 

 Darlingtonia is not homologous with, any more than it is 

 analogous to, the " lid " of these two genera. When once open, 

 the pitchers remain so. In fact, in the great majority of cases, 

 direct access to the interior of the pitcher is offered ; the only 

 exceptions being Utricularia and Polypompholyx, where the 

 aperture is closed by a valve which opens inwards. 



The pitchers are borne in somewhat different positions in 

 different plants. Thus in Nepenthes and Dischidia, they are 

 distributed over the length of the stem, and in Utricularia over 

 the leaves or the shoots ; in Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, Heliam- 

 phora, Cephalotus, Genlisea, they are borne in a cluster at the 

 surface of the ground, after the manner of radical leaves. In 

 the latter case, the leaves may all be pitchered, as in Sarracenia. 

 Darlingtonia, and Heliamphora, though in the latter some of 

 the leaves tend to develop a flattened blade ; or the pitchered 

 leaves may alternate with ordinary foliage-leaves, as in Cephalo- 

 tus and Genlisea. Inmost cases the pitchers are freely exposed 

 in the medium, be it air or water, in which the plant is living ; 

 but in the terrestrial Utricularias, and in Genlisea, this is not so. 

 Goebel (" Pflanzenbiologische Schilderungen," ii., 1891, p. 145; 

 " Diologie von Genlisea," Flora, 1893) has shown that these Utricu- 

 larias develope runners or rhizomes which penetrate the substratum 

 upon which the plant is growing, and thus it comes about that the 

 bladders borne on these runners are subterranean : and further, 

 that the long slender pitchers of Genlisea curve downwards to 

 the soil, penetrating it by means of the two long apical appen- 

 dages which enter the soil after the manner of awned fruits 

 such as those of Stipa pennata or Erodium. Similarly 

 the scaly leaves of Lathnea are subterranean. Thus pitchers 

 may be either suspended in the air, partially or completely 

 immersed in water, or buried in the soil, conditions which 

 must obviously have an important bearing upon their func- 

 tions. 



The history of pitchor-plants is a long one. Sarracenia, 

 the first of them to be described, was figured by Clusius ("Rar. 

 Plant. Hist.," lib. iv.) in 1001, under the name Limonium 

 p er*gri m i m t tmd was subsequently mentioned in Morison's " Plant. 

 Hist Oxon.," iiL, 1099, as CoilupJiylltiui, vinrginicunum; it was 



