Pretty Sundews Use Cruel Traps.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19108, 28 June 1930, Page 8

Pretty Sundews Use Cruel Traps .

Nature Notes.

By

James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

in some damp places and in bogs, in New Zealand, there are strange slender carnivorous plants, a few inches high, known as sundews, probably because on the upper surface of each leaf there are bright red hairs, each hair with a drop of sticky fluid that glistens like dew. The hairs are tentacles. They are longer near the margins of the leaves, shorter in the centres.

When a small insect touches the centre of a leaf, it is glued to the hairs. The longer hairs near the margin bend towards it, slowly but with an inexorableness that must be absolutely horrible to the captive, which sees the hand of Fate closing on it. In a few minutes, the terrible fingers seize the insect. The sticky fluid that shines so brightly in the sun blocks up the breathing holes in the insect's skin, the holes through which air is taken in and from which it is sent in tubes to all parts of the body, and to every organ. The insect’s struggles against the demon plant into whose power it has fallen are in vain. Its own struggles weaken it. Weakness is followed by exhaustion, exhaustion by death. The sundew increases the quantity of fluid secreted from its tentacles. The insect is consumed and digested by the sundew, the process taking several days. Wings and horny covering are all that remain of the little creature that flew gaily into the pretty sundew’s trap.