Nat. Ord. Sarraceniaceæ.
PITCHER PLANT.
(SOLDIER’S DRINKING CUP.)
Sarracenia purpurea.
VEN the most casual observer can hardly pass a bed of these most remarkable plants without being struck by their appearance, indeed, from root to flower, it is every way worthy of our notice and admiration.
The Pitcher Plant is by no means one of those flowers found singly and in inaccessible bogs and dense cedar-swamps, as are some of our rare and lovely Orchids. In almost any grassy swamp, at the borders of low lying lakes, and beaver-meadows, often in wet spongy meadows, it may be found forming large beds of luxuriant growth.
When wet with recent showers or glistening with dew-drops, the rich crimson veinings of the broadly scalloped lip of the tubular leaf (which is thickly beset with fine stiff silvery hairs), retaining the moisture, shine and glisten in the sun-light.
The root is thick, solid, and fibrous. The tubular leaves are of a reddish tinge on the outer and convex side, but of a delicate light green within. The texture is soft, smooth, and leathery; the base of the leaf, at the root, is narrow and pipe-stem like, expanding into a large hollow receptacle, capable of containing a wine-glass full of liquid; even in dry seasons this cup is rarely found empty. The hollow form of the leaves, and the broad ewer-like lips, have obtained for the plant its local and wide-spread name of “Pitcher Plant,” and “Soldier’s Drinking Cup.” The last name I had from a poor old emigrant pensioner, when he brought me a specimen of the plant from the banks of a half dried up lake, near which he was located: “Many a draft of blessed water have we poor soldiers had when in Egypt out of the leaves of a plant like this, and we used to call them the ‘Soldier’s Drinking Cup.’ ”
Most probably the plant that afforded the blessed water to the poor thirsty soldiers was the Nepenthe distillaria, which plant is found in Egypt and other parts of Africa. Perhaps there are but few among the inhabitants of this well-watered country that have as fully appreciated the value of the Pitcher Plant as did our poor uneducated Irish pensioner, who said that he always thought that God in His goodness had created the plant to give drink to such as were athirst on a hot and toilsome march; and so he looked with gratitude and admiration on its representative in Canada. Many a lesson may we learn from the lips of the poor and the lowly.
Along the inner portion of the leaf there is a wing or flap which adds to its curious appearance: from the section of the leaf has arisen the somewhat inappropriate name of “Side-Saddle Flower.” The evident use of this appendage is to contract the inner side of the leaf, and to produce a corresponding rounding of the outer portion, which is thus thrown back, and enables the moisture more readily to fill the cup. Quantities of small flies, beetles, and other insects, enter the pitcher, possibly for shelter, but are unable to effect a return, owing to the reflexed bristly hairs that line the upper part of the tube and lip, and thus find a watery grave in the moisture that fills the hollow below.
The tall stately flower of the Pitcher Plant is not less worthy of our attention than the curiously formed leaves. The smooth round simple scape rises from the centre of the plant to the height of 18 inches to 2 feet. The flower is single and terminal, composed of 5 sepals, with three little bracts; 5 blunt broad petals of a dull purplish-red colour, sometimes red and light-yellowish green; and in one variety the petals are mostly of a pale-green hue, and there is an absence of the crimson veins in the leafage. The petals are incurved or bent downwards towards the centre. The stamens are numerous. The ovary is 5-celled, and the style is expanded at the summit into a 5 angled, 5 rayed umbrella-like hood, which conceals beneath it 5 delicate rays, each terminating in a little hooked stigma. The capsule or seed vessel is 5-celled and 5-valved; seeds numerous.