1943] 
Book Review 
117 
is included in a stretch of hardly 100 miles in the coastal low- 
lands of North Carolina. Three families and six genera are 
native to the United States, including the pitcher plants (Sar- 
racenia and Darlingtonia) of the Sarraceniaceae, the sundew 
(Drosera) and Venus’ fly-trap (Dionaea) of the Droseraceae, 
butterwort (Pinguicula) and bladderwort (Utricularia) of the 
Lentibulariaceae. 
The traps are classified by Lloyd as “pitfalls” represented 
by the tubular leaves of the pitcher plants; as “lobster pots” in 
Genlisea; as “bird-lime” or “fly-paper” traps in Drosera, Pin- 
guicula, et al.\ as “steel trap” in Dionaea and finally as “mouse- 
trap” in Utricularia. The last is described at great length 
since Lloyd has found their underwater contraption to be more 
complicated and still more remarkable than had previously 
been supposed. 
Particularly instructive is a chapter devoted to fungi that 
catch Protozoa, nematodes, and minute crustaceans by means 
of snares and feed on them by mycelial outgrowths that pierce 
their bodies. There is a full discussion of the mechanism in- 
volved in the movements shown by the several types of active 
traps and a critical examination of the mass of evidence relat- 
ing to digestive secretions, actual digestion of captured prey 
and utilization of nitrogen. The presence of digestive enzymes 
has been demonstrated generally in the true carnivorous plants, 
but their elaboration by the plants themselves rather than by 
secondarily invading microorganisms is considered in great 
detail. In many cases no final conclusions have been reached, 
leaving a number of interesting and not too difficult problems 
still open to investigation. 
The book is very attractively printed, with an extensive, well 
classified biobliography attached to each chapter, and a good 
index. The illustrations are grouped into 38 plates, with a great 
many well executed line figures of anatomical details. There 
are a few photographs of the plants, but unfortunately they 
do not possess the same degree of excellence, excepting some 
very fine frames of motion pictures showing the action of the 
trap in Utricularia. 
Although very clearly written, the text appears somewhat 
tedious in many places by the meticulous description of ana- 
tomical details and a recitation of the statements of many ob- 
servers whose conclusions have since been controverted and 
