Carnivorous Plants.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue 7100, 7 February 1898, Page 1

Carnivorous Plants.

Carnivorous plants aro among tiio strange things of the vegetable world. Ib is more than 100 years since the leaves of Venus' Fly-trap of Eastern North America were observed by Ellis to close over, kill, and actually digesb any Insscbs whioh alighted on them. More than 500 such plants are now known, several of which are to be found in the British Islands. The mosb familiar of those, no doubt, Is the sundew, common In boggy places In the hills, whose leaves, armed with sticky hair or tentacles, will hold fast an Inseob that is tempted by their glistening juloe to settle on them ; and then, slowly closing in upon it, will kill by suffooation and finally digest their unhappy victim. The prey of the sundew usually consists of midges, but beetles and even dragon-fli«« are sometimes caught by It. In the latter case, It takes several leaves to efftob th# capture. The butterwort, whose pal* green leaves, clinging clo»ely to the soil, have a curious suggestion of a Btarfish, h<ia similar properties. It Beoret«fl not only a sticky juice to serve as a snare, bub an acid liquid which will digest nob merely the ordinary Inseob prey of the plant, but such bhings as milk and even cartilage. So much similarity is there between the action of the butterworb leaves and thab of an animal s stomach thab they have been used by the Laplanders for curdling milk Instead of rennet. "Very curious also, Is the &pptr&* tus of the tooth-wort, consisting of & series of cavities in the underground loaf shoots, Into which minute creature#, such as aphides, infusoria, and rotifers make their way, perhaps in search of food. When this happens, delicate threads protrude from the walls of the cavity, like prehensile arms, and lay their fatal grip on the intruders. Another insectivorous species is the bladder-wort, a nob uncommon floating water plant without rpota, and with multitudinous bladders attaohed to its thread-like leaves. Eaoh bladder Is closed by a valve, which opens only Inwatds, so that any small oreature can easily geb in, but finds It Impossible to geb out again. Thus ib Boon dies of starvation or suffocation,