Ill Other Insectivorous Plants 43 



ment, like that of the gastric juice, occurs not only in 

 insectivorous plants, but in situations so different as the 

 seeds of the Vetch or the milky juice of the papaw-tree 

 {Carica papaya). In warm countries, where of course fresh 

 meat cannot be hung for any length of time, it is common 

 to make a joint rapidly tender by applying to it the leaves 

 of this tree, a practice which probably finds its explanation 

 in this presence of ferment. There is also in some plants 

 an emulsifying and saponifying ferment, which acts on fats 

 and oils as the juice of the animal pancreas does ; while 

 the diastase, which, as in germinating malt, turns starch into 

 sugar, is closely comparable to the ferment of the salivary 

 juice in animals. 



Although from our present physiological standpoint we 

 have delayed mention of the butterwort until coming to the 

 sundews, its structural relations are with the bladderworts 

 and Genlisea. This is shown not only by the characters of 

 the flower, but in minute details, for, according to Goebel, 

 the two sets of glands in Pinguicula and the slime-secreting 

 hairs of Utricularia and Genlisea are all fundamentally the 

 same. 



Sundews proper (Drosera). — Beside the butterwort on 

 the marshy moor, we may perhaps find one of the Sundews 

 (Drosera). The genus is a large one, and the species are 

 widely distributed over the northern parts of both hemi- 

 spheres. In almost all countries and languages they bear 

 the same pretty and, so far as description goes, appropriate 

 name — Rossolis^ Son7ientatc^ Sundew. 



Our commoner British species — Drosera rotundifolia — 

 grows loosely rooted in marshy and peaty ground, often 

 embedded among the bog-moss which forms a fitting back- 

 ground for the rich red colour of the leaves. These, to the 

 number of half a dozen or so, lie prostrate, and from their 

 midst arises a small upright stalk with inconspicuous 



