December 9, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
517 
When Peach and Nectarine trees have shed their leaves the 
majority of the young shoots should be disnailed, leaving only a 
■sufficient number of the principal branches secured to the wall to 
prevent the individual trees from sustaining injury by rough winds, 
the object in view being to retard the flowering period of the trees 
by keeping them somewhat away from the walls, which latter con¬ 
serve and radiate the heat imparted to them by the sun, until the 
approach of spring, when perforce the trees must be pruned, 
painted with the mixture recommended above if necessary, and 
nailed in their proper positions to the wall.—H. W. Ward. 
CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 
(Mr. Latham’s Lecture .—Continued from, page 492.) 
It is interesting to note here that Darwin from these experi¬ 
ments came to the conclusion that “ the gland has the power of 
absorption as well as the power of secretion,” and this was sug¬ 
gested by Dr. Hooker in his paper on Sarracenias in 1874 
previous to Darwin’s investigations being published. He ob¬ 
served “ that a gland when excited, not only sends some in¬ 
fluence down its own tentacle, causing it to bend, but likewise 
to the surrounding tentacles, which become incurved, so that the 
bending place can be acted on by an impulse received from 
opposite directions—namely, from the gland on the summit of the 
tentacle, and from one or more glands fof the neighbouring 
tentacles ” Darwin goes on to say : “ These results led me to 
inquire whether the Drosera possessed the power of dissolving 
solid animal matter, this experiment proving that the leaves are 
capable of true digestion, and that the glands absorb the digested 
matter.” These are perhaps the most interesting of all Darwin's 
observations on the Drosera, and no such power was before dis¬ 
tinctly known to exist in the vegetable kingdom. It is also an 
interesting fact that the glands of the disc when irritated should 
transmit some influence to the glands of the exterior tentacles, 
causing them to secrete more copiously and the secretion to 
become acid. The gastric juice of animals contains, as is generally 
known, an acid and a ferment, both of which are indispensable 
for digestion, and so it is with the secretion in the Drosera. 
When the stomach of an animal is mechanically irritated it 
secretes an acid When particles of glass or other such objects 
are placed upon the glands of the Drosera, the secretion in 
these and the surrounding untouched glands was increased in 
quantity and became acid. But Schiff records that the stomach 
of an animal does not secrete its proper ferment, pepsin, until 
certain substances, which he calls Peptogenes, are absorbed. 
Darwin also goes on to say, “It appears from my experiments 
that some matters must be absorbed by the glands of the Drosera 
before they secrete their proper ferment, and from trials made 
with a large number of substances, it was found that those in 
which the secretion of Drosera dissolves, completely or partially, 
or not at all, are acted upon in exactly the same manner by 
gastric juices.” We may therefore conclude that the ferment of 
Drosera is closely analogous to, if not identical with, the pepsic 
of animals. 
Darwin, by his experiments on the leaves of Drosera, clearly 
proves that this little plant of our bogs is capable of digesting 
such substances as meat, cartilage, bone, &c., and experiments 
made with other species of Drosera, both British and exotic, 
show conclusively that they are adapted for catching insects and 
feed on their decomposing matter. The Cephalotus follicularis, 
an Australian Pitcher Plant, a native of swampy places in King 
George’s Sound, is a lovely little plant with a short stem and 
small leaves, the pitcher-like bodies having the mouths furnished 
with a thickened and regular notched rim, forming a most perfect 
trap. This little plant belongs to a natural order of its own, 
Cephalotaceae, and is placed in the natural system between Cras- 
sulaceae and Saxifragacese. The Nepenthes is an interesting 
genus, which, strange to say, has no representative in the New 
World, although we might have expected that some species would 
have been found amongst the many suitable places for the growth 
of the Nepenthes. This genus has a wide geographical range in 
the Old World. In these plants we have a wonderful provision 
in the pitcher-like appendages which hang so gracefully from the 
leaves, and which are often mistaken for the flowers of this 
plant. And for the information of any of our members who 
may have fallen into this error, I may just explain that the 
Nepenthes belongs to the class |Dicecia, plants that contain 
male flowers on one plant and female flowers on another plant, 
and flowers from the axils of the leaves. These pitchers contain 
a water-like liquid before the lid of the pitcher has ever been 
opened, demonstrating that the liquid is a secretion of the plant. 
According to experiments made by Mr. Lawson Tait of Birming¬ 
ham, at the Botanical Gardens here a few years ago, no traces of 
an acid was found in this liquid until some insect or animal 
matter was introduced, after which traces of acid were found, 
showing that the animal matter acted on certain glands of the 
inside of the pitchers, which caused them to give off an acid to 
assist decomposition. 
The genus Sarracenia comprises about five species and several 
very beautiful hybrids which have been raised during the last 
few years. The species are natives of the Atlantic coast of 
North America. From California we have Darlingtonia cali- 
fornica, a beautiful plant allied to Sarracenia. We have also 
another plant, only as yet found growing in British Guiana, 
Heliamphora natans, also belonging to the Sarracenia family, a 
plant very rare indeed, even if in cultivation. Aldrovanda 
vesiculosa is an European aquatic rootless plant, also supposed 
to exist on entrapped insect matter. Drosophyllum lusitanicum 
is a rare plant, found only in Portugal and Morocco, and 
belonging to the Drosacese family, and it is surprising the 
quantity of small insects a healthy plant will capture. Rosidu’a 
dentata is an ally of Drosophyllum and from the Cape of Good 
Hope, and is not in cultivation. Byblis gigantea, from Western 
Australia, a member of the Drosera family, also is not in culti¬ 
vation. Pinguicuia vulgaris is a plant found growing in moist 
places in mountainous parts of Britain, and there are several 
other species no doubt insectivorous. Utricularia vulgaris (the 
Bladder wort) is also a rare British plant which traps insects 
by means of its bladders, and there are some exotic species. It 
is scarcely necessary for me to point out that there are persons 
who do not believe these plants obtain food from the decomposing 
insect matter, but a careful reading of the evidence resulting 
from the long, patient, and minute investigations by the late Mr. 
Charles Darwin should convince the most sceptical, that he 
must come to the conclusion that these insect-catching plants do 
feed on such decomposing insect matter through their leaves. 
In many cases these plants are found growing under conditions 
where they cannot obtain sufficient food through their roots, 
hence the use of their leaves to make good the deficiency. Any¬ 
one growing the Dionaea or some of the Droseras must in potting 
them have been struck with the small amount of root these 
plants have. It is quite possible there arej insectivorous plants 
amongst other families; for instance, the Bromeliaceous plants of 
the Pine Apple family. They have rigid, channelled spiny leaves, 
and are mostly natives of the tropics, and some of them are 
rootless air plants, and the foliage is so constructed as to form 
perfectly water-tight compartments. I have seen no mention of 
those plants being carnivorous, but they seem so well adapted to 
catch insects, and being plants in some cases with very little root 
and in others no root at all, they must to a large extent be leaf- 
feeders. We also have amongst some of these Bromeliaceous 
plants most lovely coloured foliage, just the colours to attract 
insects to the wate v reservoirs at the base of the leaves. Then, 
again, we have such plants as the Silene (Catchtty), so named 
because of the viscid moisture on the stalks of many of the 
species, also the viscid moisture on the buds of the Horse 
Chestnut, Mimulus glutinosus, some of the Sempervivums, and 
many other plants which could be named, all of which catch 
small insects by their viscid matter. It may well be asked, Are 
these plants carnivorous or not ? or, in otherjwords, Do they feed 
on the insects caught on their stems or flowers ? . 
In illustration of this paper, Mr. Latham used the following 
plants :— 
Drosera capensis. 
„ spathulata 
„ binata . 
„ rotundifolia 
Sarracenia Drummondi ... 
* „ flava . 
„ rubra.. 
„ purpurea 
„ Chelsoni 
Dionsea muscipula. 
Nepenthes distillatoria 
phyllamphora 
Baffleaiana 
Vries ia brachystacha 
Darlingtonia californica ... 
Mr. Cooper, gardener to the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, 
M.P., also kindly contributed Nepenthes Hookeriana, N. ampul- 
lacea vittata, N. laevis and N. hybrida, Darlingtonia californica, 
and Drosera rotundifolia. 
LATE GRAPES. 
Last week the sun shone biightly after several days of dull foggy 
weather, giving me a splendid opportunity of looking over hanging 
Grapes. I was pleased to find less decay than is usual at this season * f 
the year. I always consider November the worst month, much more to 
Cape of Good Hope. 
Australia, 
do. 
Britain. 
North America, 
do. 
do. 
do. 
Hybrid. 
North America. 
China, 
do. 
Singapore. 
California. 
