232 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
wards and these unfailingly conduct 
the victim to the fatal liquid at the base 
of the pitcher and make return impos- 
sible. Old pitchers are often more than 
half-full of dead insects, tainting the air 
and ever attractingfresh victims to whom 
carrion is as welcome as honey. Beside 
flies — which form the largest propor- 
tion — beeSjhornetSjbutterflies, dragon- 
flies, beetles, grasshoppers, and even 
snails, are entrapped, while so unfailing 
is the attraction that the colonists use 
cut pitchers as ready-made flycatchers 
in their houses. The flowers of the 
Darlingtonia come singly, nodding at 
the end of long stems covered with straw- 
coloured scales or bracts. They are like 
those of Sarracenia but smaller in their 
parts, 2 inches across, pale purple in 
colour, with the stigma shaped like a 
five-pointed star. 
Culture. — The Darlingtonia is not 
difficult to grow in a moist half-shaded 
house or pit secure from frost. Coming 
from such an elevation it enjoys a cooler 
temperature than the lowland Sarra- 
cenias and is killed by too much heat, 
while if grown in full sunshine it be- 
comes stunted and subject to thrips, red- 
spider and green-fly. The compost 
should be of lumpy fibrous peat and 
live chopped sphagnum, with a little 
coarse sand and lumps of limestone or 
charcoal, but no loam or leaf-soil. The 
pots or pans should be filled one-third 
with crocks,allowingfree drainage while 
the plant should be well raised as on a 
little mound. Constant moisture at the 
root and in the atmosphere must be 
maintained by a free use of the spray- 
ing-can or syringe, but care should be 
taken that the water does not enter the 
pitchers or they may be broken down 
by its weight. Some growers keep the 
plants in a saucer of water throughout 
the summer, but a better way is to sink 
the pot in a second and larger one where 
it is well padded with sphagnum, or even 
(when the plant has to be grown in a 
house with other things) to give it a 
ventilated glass case in its own corner, 
where it can more easily be kept moist. 
Plants may be increased by division or 
by seed, which is freely produced and 
germinates without much difficulty. 
The best plants are raised in this way 
in pans nearly filled with the same com- 
post covered over with a neat layer of 
fine moss upon which the seed is sown, 
covered with glass, and stood on a shelf 
in a cool house or in a cold frame. The 
seedlings appear in a month or six weeks 
and when of a size to handle may be 
pricked off in similar pans and potted 
off in their second season, though four 
or five years elapse before they reach 
flowering size. Plants may be divided 
at any time when at rest, the crowns 
being severed by a sharp knife, though 
not infrequently there are strong offsets 
almost like runners which can easily be 
removed and soon make large plants. 
This work and potting must always be 
done in the resting season — generally 
July — for the plant suffers greatly from 
disturbance at other times, and the 
roots are often active before there is any 
appearance of growth. 
The plant shown in our engraving 
was perhaps the finest ever grown in 
this country, with several pitchers over 
3 feet in height (the tallest 3 feet 9 inches) 
