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Why, the very swamp behind our house is full of a plant called 'a gall's side-saddle.'1 1 This is the common name for the Sarracenia. "Plague take them old Independents; I can't and never could understand them. I believe, if Bishop Laud had allowed them to sing through their noses, pray without gowns, and build chapels without steeples, they would have died out like Quakers, by being let alone.

The Sarracenia derives its name of "pitcher plant" from the fact of its possessing the following curious characteristics: The median nerve is prolonged beyond the leaves in the manner of a tendril, and terminates in a species of cup or urn. This cup is ordinarily three or four inches in depth, and one to one and a half inches in width.

It was late in the evening when I observed it enter; the next morning I cut the tube open; the cockroach was still alive, but it was covered with a secretion produced from the inner surface of the tube, and its legs fell off as I extricated it. From all appearance the terrible Sarracenia was eating its victim alive.

Flies, beetles, or even cockroaches, at the expiration of three or four days at most, disappear, nothing being left of them save their wings and other hard, parts of their bodies. The Sarracenia is, indeed, not only the most voracious of all known species of carnivorous plants, but the least fastidious as to the nature of the food upon which it feeds. W.C.M., Nature. Mr.

In fact, it would seem that the Sarracenia, like some animals, can feed upon carrion and thrive upon it. In instances in which experiments have been made with fresh, raw beef or mutton, the meat has been covered in a few hours with the secretions of the leaves, and the blood extracted from it.

In some of them even digestion, or at least the absorption of undecomposed soluble animal juices, may be suspected; but there is no proof of it. But, if pitchers of the Sarracenia family are only macerating vessels, those of Nepenthes the pitchers of the Indian Archipelago, familiar in conservatories seem to be stomachs. The investigations of the President of the Royal Society, Dr.

The pitchers of our familiar Northern Sarracenia, which is likewise Southern, are open-mouthed; and, although they certainly secrete some liquid when young, must derive most of the water they ordinarily contain from rain. How insects are attracted is unknown, but the water abounds with their drowned bodies and decomposing remains.

Flies thrown into the open-mouthed tube of the yellow Sarracenia, even when free from water, are unable to get out one hardly sees why, except that they cannot fly directly upward; and microscopic chevaux-de-frise of fine, sharp-pointed bristles which line most of the interior, pointing strictly downward, may be a more effectual obstacle to crawling up the sides than one would think possible.

In this way it is easily conceivable that peltate leaves are a frequent specific character, while ascidia are not, as they only appear in the special cases of limited adaptation, as in the instances of the so called pitcher-plants. The genera Nepenthes, Sarracenia and some others are very well known and perhaps even the bladderworts or Utricularia might be included here.

The yellow Sarracenia, with long tubular leaves, called "trumpets in the Southern States, has an arching or partly upright lid, raised well above the orifice, so that some water may rain in; but a portion is certainly secreted there, and may be seen bedewing the sides and collected at the bottom before the mouth opens.