A-FOOD DEVOURING PLANT.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 11

A-FOOD DEVOURING PLANT.

Mr. Dunstan, a naturalist^ who has recently roturned from Central America, whore he fepent nearly two years in the study of the fauna and flora of the country, relateß the finding of a singular growth in one of the swamps which surround the great lake of Nicaragua. He was engaged in hunting for botanical and entomological specimens, when he heard the dog cry out, as if in agony, from a distance. Running to the spot From whence the animal's cries oame, Mr. Dunstan found him enveloped in a perfect network of what seemed to be a fine rope-like tissue of roots or fibres. The plant or vine seemed composed entirely of bare interlacing stems, resembling more than anything else the branches of the weeping-willow denuded of all foliage, but of a dark, nearly black hue, and covered with a thick viscid gum that exuded from the pores. Drawing, his knifo, Mr. Dunstan endeavoured to cut the animal free, but it was. only with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in severing the fleshy muscular fibre. To his horror and amazement the naturalist then saw that the dog's body was blood-stained, while his skin appeared to have been actually sucked, or puckered in spots, and the animal staggered as if from exhaustion. In cutting the vino the twigs curled like living sinuous fingers about Mr. Dunstan's hand, and it required no Blight force to free the member from its clinging clasp, which left the flesh red and blistered. The gum exuding from the vine was of a greyish dark tinge, remarkably adhesive, and of a disagreeable animal odour, powerful asd nauseating to inhale. The native servants who accompanied Mr. Dunstan manifested the greatest horror of the vine, which they call the devil's snare, and were full of stories of. its death -dealing powers. Ho was able to discover very little about the nature of the plant, owing to the difficulty of bundling it, for its grasp can only be torn away with loss of skin and even of flesh, but as near as Mr. Dunstan could ascertain, its power of Buction is contained in a number of infinitesimal mouths 0' little suckers, which, ordinarily closed, open foi the reception of food. If the substance is animal, the blood is drawn oiY, and tho carcase or refuse then dropped. A lump of raw moat being thrown it, in the short time of five minutes the blood will bo thoroughly drunk off and the mass thrown aside. Its voracity is almost beyond belief, it devouring at one time over 101 b. of meat, though it may be deprived of all food for weeks without any apparent obs of vitality.