PITCHER, Zina, American physician: b. Washington County, N. Y., 1797; d. 1872. In 1822 he was graduated at Middlebury College and soon afterward was appointed assistant surgeon in the army. In 1835 he was president of the Army Medical Board. After 15 years, connection with the army medical service, he resigned and established a medical practice in Detroit. He was thrice mayor of Detroit; was president of the Michigan Medical Society in 1855-56 and of the American Medical Associa tion in 1856. He also served as regent of the University of Detroit. He was also for three years editor of the Peninsular Medical Journal.
plants whose leaves resemble pitchers. These pitchers, which are more or less filled with water, are thought to act as plant-food gatherers, especially of nitrog enous food, which they are believed to digest from the bodies of entrapped insects.
erally they have lids whose office is to keep out rain; honey-secreting glands, which attract in sects; downward pointing hairs or bristles which permit the visitors to crawl down in the pitchers but prevent their return; digestive and even pepsin or enzyme-containing secretions which act upon the soft parts of the insects' bodies.
After the nectar-hunting insects have finally begun to decompose, the odor of decay fre quently attracts carrion-feeding insects so the plants may be said to have two harvests.
Mosquitoes have been known to breed in the water contained in the pitchers.
The best-known kinds are the species Nepenthes (family Nepenthacecr, of which about 50 tropic.il species, mostly Malayan, have been described. These are the pitcher-plants seen in greenhouses, the pitcher pendant upon the ends of rather narrow leaves. Two genera of these plants are American. The pitcher plants or "side-saddle flowers" of the swamps east of the Rocky Mountains, especially well known east of the Mississippi River, belong to the genus Sarracencia. The other genus has only one species (Darlingtonia californica), which is found only at high elevations of the Pacific Coast. Heliamphora nutans is a unique species found in northern South America. These three genera constitute the family Sarraceniacecr. Cephalotus follicularis is an Australian plant with pitchers resembling those of Nepenthes, but it belongs to a different family.