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By Root 559 0

rootstock, the slender tubes, sometimes standing a yard high, are twisted over much of their length until the hooded top faces outward from the clump. From the downwardly directed mouth of the hood hangs a broad, forked, ''fishtail" appendage, the inner face of which secretes much nectar to lure insects that crawl over it to the orifice. The green tube is veined with red; the hood and top of the tube are thickly dotted with whitish, translucent windows through which trapped insects might vainly try to escape until, exhausted, they fall into the depths. The absence of glands indicates that enzymes are not secreted to digest the many small creatures that die there. Substances released by bacterial decay are absorbed by the inner surface of the tube and help to nourish the pale green-and-reddish yellow flowers that rise above it on long scapes.

The third genus in the pitcher plant family, Heliamphora, was unknown until about 1840, when the explorer R. H. Schomburgk found H. nutans growing in a marshy savanna at an elevation of about 6,000 feet (1,830 m.) on Mt. Roraima in southern British Guiana (now Guyana). In the wettest spots on the cliffs and summit of the mountain, rosettes of foot-high (30 cm.) red-veined tubes with flaring mouths spring from stout rootstocks in wide, dense stands. Along the front of each tube are two wings, and from the summit rises a little appendage, called the spoon, much too narrow to keep out the frequent rains. As in the foregoing pitcher plants, nectar glands at the top attract insects, and downwardly pointing hairs direct them inward to a smooth and shining zone over which they slip to the depths of the vessel, where more such hairs impede their escape. As in Darlingtonia, digestive glands are absent here. The white or pale rose, petalless flowers are displayed high above the tubes on red-tinted stalks. Other species of Heliamphora grow on the tepuis, isolated table-mountains that rise into the clouds from the savannas of southern Venezuela. Some are shrubby plants up to four feet (1.2 m.) tall, with pitchers up to two feet (60 cm.) high. A peculiar feature of some of these pitchers is a pore about halfway up the front, which permits excess rainwater to flow out.

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Cobra lily, Darlingtonia californica

Through the eastern tropics from northern Australia and New Guinea to Ceylon, the Seychelles Islands, and Madagascar, and from sea level up to 9,000 feet (2,750 m.) in the mountains grow about seventy species of pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes in the family Nepenthaceae. Most are found on wet ground or in humid

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forests, growing as epiphytes or as lianas that climb high into trees from terrestrial rhizomes. Some of the vines are thick and strong enough for use in the construction of rustic suspension bridges. In addition to its ascending vine, N. ampullaria sends stout branches creeping over the ground amid mosses, where they may be traced for several yards by the dense clusters of pitchers strung along them. Other pitchers are displayed in the treetops.

The leaves of Nepenthes are of two kinds. Some consist of a simple blade with a midrib that projects from its tip as a tendril, much like that of Gloriosa superba in the lily family. Other leaves are more complex: the tendril, which may become quite long, bears a pitcher at its end. The morphology of this peculiar formation is puzzling, but it reminds me of the foliage of the shrubby Codiaeum that grows in our garden with leaves of two sorts. Some are simple, long, slender, red-and-yellow ribbons. In other leaves the ribbon is in two parts, separated by a slender stalk that resembles a petiole. The apical section of the leaf is peltate, with a short, upturned edge, the barest suggestion of a cup, inward from the attachment of the false petiole. Moreover, a slender "tail" projects from the upper face of the leaf, a short distance behind its apex. It requires no great imagination to derive a cup from a peltate leaf by the upward growth of the basal extension to catch up with the main part of