70 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



tentacles have no power of motion, and are not con- 

 sequently sensitive to the touch. The fly-catching 

 operation is performed by the secretion alone. That 

 the tentacles are capable of absorption is shown by 

 the aggregation of the protoplasm after contact with 

 nitrogenous substances. When the insect falls ex- 

 hausted and dead, smothered with the viscid secretion 

 of the tentacles, upon the small sessile glands, the 

 contact stimulates the latter to secretion, and it is by 

 their action that the prey is dissolved and assimi- 

 lated.' The process by which the insects are captured 

 differs therefore from that of the Sundews ; but after 

 the insect is caught, and deposited upon the small 

 sessile glands, the process of disintegration, and 

 digestion, is evidently the same in all essential par- 

 ticulars. 



An allied plant, at the Cape of Good Hope {Rori- 

 dula dentatd) probably acts in a similar manner, but 

 no living specimens have been examined. The leaves 

 are studded with glands, which secrete viscid matter, 

 to which insects and other bodies adhere. 



The same ma}' be said of an Australian plant, 

 belonging to another genus {Byblis giganted). These 

 can only be named provisionally, as individuals 

 concerning whom further information is desired. 



The Sundew family {DroseracccB) includes the six 



' Darwin, " Insectivorous Plants,'' p. 341. 



