Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/565

 PITCHER PLANTS 549 portion of the tube is beautifully mottled with white and netted with pinkish veins; the flower stalk, from 1 to 4 ft. long, is furnished with straw-colored scales, and bears a single nodding flower about 2 in. in diameter, with five straw-colored sepals and as many purple petals. The leaves contain water in which large numbers of insects are drowned; the orifice of the tube is so completely protected that it is well nigh impossible that the liquid should be other than a secretion of the plant. This was first found by the botanist of the Wilkes exploring expedition in 1842 on the 'upper Sacramento, and has since been found in other localities ; it was described by Torrey, who dedicated it to the late Dr. William Dar- lington of West Chester, Pa. The Darling- tonia succeeds admirably in cultivation with the same treatment required by sarracenias. Another genus of the same family is Jieliam- phora, also American, but found only in the mountains of Venezuela; its leaves are open pitchers with an oblique mouth, as if the pitcher were not quite completed, and the blade, so strongly developed in Darlingtonia, is reduced to a minute concave appendage at the apex; this differs from the other genera in having several flowers upon the stem, which are small, nodding, white, or pale rose-colored. There is but one species, H. nutans, which does not appear to have been brought into Venezuela Pitcher Plant (Heliamphora). cultivation. The Australian pitcher plant, the smallest of all, is cephalotus follicularis (Gr. /ce^aAwrdf, headed, in reference to the form of the stamens). There is but one species, which inhabits the swamps in King George's sound. It has a very short stem, bearing ordinary leaves of an oblong or elliptical form, and also others which are dilated to form neat little pitchers ; intermediate stages between the pitch- ers and the ordinary leaves have been observed, showing them to be leaves peculiarly modified. The pitchers are from 1 to 3 in long, and in a well grown plant are arranged in a close cir- cular tuft ; each has two strong hairy ribs in front and one on each side ; they are green, spotted and shaded with purple or brown. At the top of the pitcher is a much thickened rim, which is handsomely and regularly grooved' and against it the concave, hairy, pink-veined lid neatly fits. The flowers, which are not showy, are borne in a long spike; each has six pistils, which ripen a single seed each. This Australian Pitcher Plant (Cephalotus follicularis). genus has been a troublesome one to botanists, who have placed it in several different fami- lies, including one proposed especially for it; Bentham and Hooker, in Genera Plantarum, admit it as an anomalous genus of the saxi- frage family. Some species of dischidia, a tropical genus of milkweeds (asclepiadacece), are to be enumerated among pitcher plants; these climb to the tops of the tallest trees, and among their upper leaves are some which are developed as pitchers, while others retain their normal form. The most striking of all the pitcher plants are furnished by the genus nepenthes. They are inhabitants of tropical swamps in the East Indies, Madagascar, Aus- tralia, and New Caledonia, and now number over 30. The genus, while it presents affini- ties with several families, is too unlike all oth- ers to be united with them, and stands in a family by itself, nepenthece, near the birth- worts (aristolochiacece). The plants are half shrubby with prostrate or trailing stems ; the apetalous flowers are dioecious, in a slender raceme ; the male flowers have a four-parted calyx, with about 16 stamens united into a col- umn to which the united anthers form a spheri- cal head ; the female flowers have a three- or four-cornered ovary, with as many cells, the numerous ovules in which ripen into elongated seeds with a very long, loose, membranous coat. The alternate leaves have the petiole winged