文档介绍：INSECTIVOROUS
MARY TREAT.
THERE are many seemingly strange things in
nature, but perhaps none more remarkable than
the fact that some plants kill and consume small
animals, thus reversing the order of nature's laws,
or as we have been taught to look upon her laws.
The mon of these plants are the Sun•
dews or Droseras. There is scarcely a swamp in
any part of our country, either North or South,
which does not contain one or more species of
these interesting plants. The leaves of the dif•
ferent species are covered with hair-like glands or,
more properly, tentacles surmounted with glands,
which exude a clear, viscid fluid that glistens in
the sunshine like tiny drops of dew, from which
the plants take the name of Sundew.
The Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia)
is more often found in the Northern States than
1 The first experiments on the digestion of animal substances by
plants were made by Kanby on Dionaea (1865) and by Mrs. Treat on
Drosera (1871). In 1875, Darwin published "Insectivorous Plants."
either of the other species. Its leaves are ar•
ranged in a rosette and lie flat on the ground, or
on the moss among which they often grow. Some
of these little plants have a rosy, pink hue, and
look wonderfully attractive as they sparkle in the
sunshine. No doubt the glistening brightness
lures many little thirsty insects to the cool-look•
ing, dewy leaves. But no sooner does one touch
a leaf than it finds itself held by the deceptive,
sticky fluid, and the more it struggles to e
free, the more it is entangled. As it stretches and
reaches out to get away, it es more and
more in contact with other bristling filaments,
until finally it has no power to move, and the re•
maining filaments which it did not reach are all
soon curved and bent toward the poor captive,
which is quickly bathed in the slimy secretion,
and dies within ten or twenty minutes after it is
caught. This secretion