26 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
lining the lid would make it impossible for him to back out of 
the trap. Entrance is delightful ; but once within, the sunshine 
is lost forever. 
The leaves of the pitcher plant grow in a basal rosette. 
The outer and older row of tubes are often filled with their 
prey. They are the first to wither, turn brown, and in time 
decompose. With their freight of dead insects they materially 
enrich the soil which feeds the plant. 
A southern species of this genus, Sarracenia variolaris, 
produces a hood which covers the orifice of the pitchers so 
closely as to exclude all rain ; yet the tubes secrete a viscid 
liquid which causes the death of all insects prying beyond the 
cover. The western carnivorous p\a.nt, Darlingtonia Calif arni- 
ca, grows in the vicinity of Mount Shasta, California, at an 
altitude of 1,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level. The pitchers 
are often two feet high, and an inch in diameter. The top is 
inflated, and the whole tubular leaf is spirally twisted about 
half a revolution to the left. The hood, or lid of the pitchers 
is different from those of the eastern pitcher plant. The 
top consists of an inflated sac, about four inches across, with 
transparent window^s in its roof, and having underneath an 
opening, an inch or less in diameter. At the upper extremity 
of this opening hangs a two-lobed blade resembling a fish's 
tail, which is attractively colored, and twisted. The inside is 
covered with stiff, erect, dewy-tipped hairs. The honeybait. 
as in the eastern pitcher plant, is situated about the rim of the 
pitcher, and along the crimson veining of the leaf. A viscid 
fluid also is secreted in the depths of the tubes, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the dew and rains are absolutely shut out by 
the twisted, two-lobed blade of the hood. Yet the insects re- 
quired for the nourishment of this plant are attracted, and must 
be small enough to pass up through the narrow door of the 
hood. Insects crawl up the crimson veining of the tubes from 
the roots, until they arrive at the honey-tipped rim. Others 
