VENUS’ FLY-TRAP 
This, the most interesting of the insectivorous plants, grows only in a small area on the coast 
of North Carolina. 
Although it draws most of its nourishment from the ground and the 
sun, like other plants, yet it is not entirely healthy and vigorous unless it has animal food. 
Several of the leaves on this plant are closed, having caught insects which they are now in 
the process of digesting. 
The process of digestion usually requires two or three weeks, after 
which the leaves open to reject the remains, but usually are never again active. 
Some- 
times, however, the same leaf has been made to digest several insects in succession. 
(Fig. 1.) 
find it in the ‘lower walks’ of life, is not 
confined to animals. Many plants ex- 
hibit in response to external stimuli 
protective reflexes which are analogous 
to the nervous reflexes of man. Notable 
among these are the drooping leaves of 
the sensitive plant when it is lightly 
touched, and the movements by which 
the Drosera and Venus’ Fly-Trap cap- 
ture and digest their prey when they 
are excited by the touch of an insect.” 
‘In other words, the complex organ- 
ism differs from the simple only in 
the number of its reacting units and 
their attunement. It would seem, there- 
fore, that the manifold reactions of man 
differ only in number and complexity, 
but not in principle, from the simple 
adaptive reactions of Venus’ Fly-Trap.” 
This plant ‘‘possesses one of the most 
remarkable adaptive mechanisms in 
nature.”’ It ‘evinces just as much 
484 
power of perception and discrimination 
as is shown by the amoeba; indeed, 
almost as much as is shown by many 
highly differentiated organisms, such 
as the frog, for example. The fly-trap 
catches flies, eats and digests them and 
ejects the refuse. The frog does the 
same, responding to the adequate stim- 
ulus of the sight of a fly just as the fly- 
trap responds to its touch. Both the 
frog and the fly-trap catch insects by 
comparable motor mechanisms. Each 
depends on an adequate stimulus for 
the excitation of the mechanism as a 
result of which stored energy is set free 
to be manifested in the fly-catching 
reflex. Each then digests and assimil- 
ates the caught insect and when hungry 
catches another insect. 
“If the reactions of the human 
organism be reduced to their simplest 
terms, probably none will be found more 
