Botanic Gardens, informs me that it is much more manageable under
culture, growing freely and flowering annually; whilst Pinguicula
vulgaris has to be renewed every year. Mr. Ralfs found numerous [page
391] insects and fragments of insects adhering to almost all the
leaves. These consisted chiefly of Diptera, with some Hymenoptera,
Homoptera, Coleoptera, and a moth. On one leaf there were nine dead
insects, besides a few still alive. He also observed a few fruits of
Carex pulicaris, as well as the seeds of this same Pinguicula, adhering
to the leaves. I tried only two experiments with this species; firstly,
a fly was placed near the margin of a leaf, and after 16 hrs. this was
found well inflected. Secondly, several small flies were placed in a
row along one margin of another leaf, and by the next morning this
whole margin was curled inwards, exactly as in the case of Pinguicula
vulgaris.
PINGUICULA LUSITANICA.
This species, of which living specimens were sent me by Mr. Ralfs from
Cornwall, is very distinct from the two foregoing ones. The leaves are
rather smaller, much more transparent, and are marked with purple
branching veins. The margins of the leaves are much more involuted;
those of the older ones extending over a third of the space between the
midrib and the outside. As in the two other species, the glandular
hairs consist of longer and shorter ones, and have the same structure;
but the glands differ in being purple, and in often containing granular
matter before they have been excited. In the lower part of the leaf,
almost half the space on each side between the midrib and margin is
destitute of glands; these being replaced by long, rather stiff,
multicellular hairs, which intercross over the midrib. These hairs
perhaps serve to prevent insects from settling on this part of the
leaf, where there are no viscid glands by which they could be caught;
but it is hardly probable that they were developed for this purpose.
The spiral vessels pro- [page 392] ceeding from the midrib terminate at
the extreme margin of the leaf in spiral cells; but these are not so
well developed as in the two preceding species. The flower-peduncles,
sepals, and petals, are studded with glandular hairs, like those on the
leaves.
The leaves catch many small insects, which are found chiefly beneath
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