pitcher plant

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various insectivorous plants of the genera Sarracenia, Nepenthes, or Darlingtonia, having pitcherlike leaves that attract and trap insects.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A plant whose leaves are so modified as to form a pitcher or ascidium. See cut under ascidium. The pitcher commonly contains a liquid, and is adapted to the capture and assimilation of insects. The common North American pitcher-plant is Sarracenia purpurea (see cut in next column), and the parrot-beaked pitcher-plant of Georgia and Florida is S. psittacina. (See Sarracenia.) The Californian pitcher-plant, sometimes called calfs-head, forms the allied genus Darlingtonia. Heliamphora nutans, of the Sarraceniaceæ, is a pitcher-plant of the mountains of Venezuela. A large and quite different group, the East Indian pitcher-plants, is formed by the genus Nepenthes. For the Australian pitcher-plant, see Cephalotus.

Wiktionary

1. n. any of various insectivorous plants of the genera Sarracenia, Nepenthes, or Darlingtonia that have pitcher-like leaves with slippery sides that attract and trap insects

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. any plant with the whole or a part of the leaves transformed into pitchers or cuplike organs, especially the species of Nepenthes. See Nepenthes.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of several insectivorous herbs of the order Sarraceniales