The very largest of the pitcher plants is one which grows in the swamps of California, whose leaves sometimes become as much as two or three feet high, the huge pitchers forming the most capacious receptacle for insects of all kinds and sizes. Its general plan is like that of the southern pitcher plant described above, in that it has an overarching hood with translucent spots, and a trail of nectar which leads to the dangerous rim. It has become further elaborated, however, in that the hood extends into a gaudy fish-like appendage, whose colors and flapping serve to attract the flying as well as the creeping insects. The pitcher, also, instead of being straight, is spirally twisted, and has a wing-like expansion which serves as a guide in the spiral ascent to the rim, and leads the victim with definiteness and certainty to the region of danger. The fish-tail appendage is also smeared with the nectar secretion, so that any flying insect lighting upon it is enticed under the overshadowing arch and is almost sure of capture. The most common pitcher plants of the tropics are the Nepenthes, one of which is shown in our illustration. It will be noticed that each leaf when fully formed consists of three distinct regions, namely, the leaf-like blade, which is continued into a tendril which coils around a support, and the tendril in turn ends in a curiously-formed pitcher, which has a more or less complete lid. These pitchers are often mottled with bright colors, and as they swing at the ends of the tendrils they seem to attract the attention of roving insects. Around the rim of the pitcher a very definite row of glands may be observed, which secrete the nectar to which the insects are attracted. The arrangements within the pitcher are such as have been described for the ordinary pitcher plant. These pitchers of Nepenthes are usually found containing insects, and often very many of them, whose bodies are being slowly digested and the products absorbed by the plant.