PLANTS THAT EAT MEAT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 June 1924, Page 7

PLANTS THAT EAT MEAT.

ENDOWED WITH A SENSE OF TASTE. All carnivorous plants are endowed with a sense of taste, and thev are most particular in their choice of “food, for it would he useless to give a flesheatiiig plant a lump of sugar, hut, on the other hand, a tasty morsel of meat would be speedily devoured! The best known of our English epicureans is the common Sundew, which’ can always he found in boggy places, says' Ivy Rodgers, F.R.H.S., in the Daily Mail. This voracious plant often captures dragon-flies and ants, for, attracted by the gummy appearance of the rosy leaves, the feet of the luckless victims become securely fixed to the gum and the red glandular tentacles close in on the unwary insects, which are. swiftly devoured. The buttenvort. which grows side by side with the. sundew, also ensnares and eats insects, for the sticky leaves of this plant also exude a resinous substance, 'which curls over the prey and holds it captive. The Venus fly-trap grips its tasty diet by means of fringing hairs that interlock. The curious leaves stand almost erect and their lobes like a halfopened book, and you can see an ihiwary beetle stumbling over them until all at once he is lost to view, for the lobes close rip, dropping the unfortunate beetle into the cleverly constructed trap. Insectivorous plants, such as the American side-saddle plant, set water traps for their victims The sidesaddle fraternity hold up their coloured vase-like leaves to the sunlight, around the mouths of which are glands that secrete honey. Lured by the scent of their nectar, the insects make their way across the leaves, which are beauti_ fully streaked with purple, green, and red, to the mouth-of the plant; farther and farther down the tube they stray, seeking for the honey for which they crave. Detentive hairs prevent them from ever returning to the air and sunlight, and weary an ( ] exhausted they eventually fall into the pool secreted at the base of the leaf. The Darlingtonia, which is a native of Cal.ilomia, is similarly constructed, and the acid stored in its internal glands drowns and decomposes both birds and insects. 'The bladderwort that abounds on our weed-strewn ponds has little -pear-shaped heads hanging from its branching, thread-like roots and these allow minute creatures to pass in. hut they have’ no exits, emergency or otherwise, and the dead carcases help to sustain the plant in good health,- All these plants are equipped to capture and eat small flying and creeping animals in order that the necessary substance may he added to their tissues which the soil lacks.