The Pitcher Plant; The Fly‑catcher

The Pitcher Plant we may define,
The flower of the base‑ball nine;
This name perhaps the plant belies,
For Pitcher Plants sometimes catch flies;
The “Fly”-Catcher we educate
To firmly stand behind the plate,
To stop, and treat with circumspection,
Whatever comes in his direction.

Where this text comes from

First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-williams-wood_how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts, how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L8.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Pitcher Plant; The Fly‑catcher.” First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-williams-wood/the-pitcher-plant-the-fly-catcher/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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