Pitcher plant

Read about Pitcher plant in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Pitcher plant are various carnivorous plants bearing pitchers which in some cases contain a secreted liquid by the aid of which the plant digests the bodies of insects. The native pitcher plants of the northern and southern states are Sarracenias. The California pitcher plant is described under Darlingtonia. The favorite pitcher plants of greenhouses are Nepenthes. All these plants have a morphological resemblance in their pitcher-bearing foliage, but their flowers and seeds are so apparently unlike that they suggest derivation from widely different parts of the vegetable kingdom. The genus Nepenthes might possibly be derived from the Aristolochia family, being a derivative along one line, while the parasitic Cytinaceae might be regarded as having degenerated along another line from the same source. The Australian genus Cephalotus, which has a pitcher strikingly like the pitchers of Nepenthes, may be an outlying relative of the saxifrage family. Sarracenia, Darlingtonia, and the Venezuelan genus Heliamphora seem to be more closely allied to one another than to the others, and they make up the Sarraceniaceae. See the different generic entries for fuller accounts. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

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