PLANTS THAT EAT INSECTS AND BIRDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8841, 30 January 1907, Page 2

PLANTS THAT EAT INSECTS AND BIRDS.

« INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS. Plants with appetites for insects and birds and with reasoning power sufficient to satisfy them are not the imaginings of a- bewildered' brain, but are actual fact, and can be found in several varieties. The majority of us are inclined to look upon plants as inanimate forms of vegetation, but this fallacy ifi exposed by students of horticulture, one of whom, in an article in. the 1 " Grand Magazine," deals interestingly 1 with insectivorous and carnivorous plant-life. It appears strange, yet a relation or ■< a plentiful British plant actually catohes its" food. The sundew, an in- . sectivorous plant, provides the wherewithal for a- most striking experiment '. for those who care to avail themselves . of the privilege. Mrs Treat was the / first to call attention to a meet re- ■ markable fact in connection with the • American sundew— a fact which shows very clearly that the powers of this plant are not limited to the mere lymg--1 in-wait for its prey. She «*«*— • "I pinned some living fries halt an ' inch from the leaves near the apex at ' ten o'clock. In forty minutes the leaves ' had bent perceptibly towards the flies. At twelve o'clock the leaves had reach- ' ed the flies, and their legs were en- . tangled, among -the bristles and held > fast." , Here we have an irrefutable instance of a plant which is not only conscious j ► that it desires flies for its food, but is ■ also able to move toward its prey. • Tho idea of plants consuming birds i and animals is not by any nieans so fantastic as it may appear. The ne- ■ penthes or pitcher plants, of tropical countries, are fairly well known as hothouse curiosities in t Britain. The "pitcher" — which is, ;of course, a development of the leaf 1 in some species —produces a sweet liquid, while in 1 others the receptacle simply catches water. In either case insects are &t-, ' tracted by the fluid, which they come • to drink, and when once inside the "pitcher" they -are prevented from escaping by certain .hooklike processes, which, make an exit impossible. It is no unusual thing to see these " pitchers " — and those in some species are eight inches or a foot long — brimful of an accumulated' mass of insect , bodies. More strange ertill, however, it has been asserted on the best authority that birds, mice, and even rats have been, found, in. the "pitchers" of the nepenthes. More observation will be necessary • before it can be definitely stated that the nepenthes really make arrangements to lure these creatures into their "pitchers," as, of course, the presence of the larger animals might be accidental. Still, the carse is meet curious-, and one for fuller investigation. ■The representatives of a group of vegetable paraeites known as cordyoeps have a habit of growth which, to say the least, is remarkable. These fungi live in perhaps as strange a way as do any plants, for 'a good number of the species actually grow on living in«ects and spiders. • A variety hailing from the West Indies makes itself the guest of a kind of wasp, and the unfortunate hosts are frequently to be seen flying about with, those unecrimulouisi plants sprouting out from their bodies to a length rs grent as that of the insect itself. In New Zealand one of theise fungi at times attains the length of tdx or even eight inches, while the caterpillar winch it is growing upon may be less than a third of that measurement. Of course, finally in every case these aggressive plants bring about the destruction of their hosts, and it is only a question as to how long the insect, or whatever the attacked creature may , be, can hold out against the Revere drain upon its system.