THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



89 



shed their pollen, so that the pollen of 

 later flowers must be conveyed by insects 

 to the stigmas of earlier ones. But in ad- 

 dition to this, the style itself is abruptly 

 bent near the base, so as to form an angle 

 of from 45 to 90 degrees with the perpen- 

 dicular, carrying the stigmas far away from 

 the stamens and usually locating them be- 

 tween the lobes of the corolla. Still more 

 remarkable, however, is the fact that in 

 most cases the stamens also are bent, but 

 always in precisely the opposite direction 

 from the style, so as to lean conspicuously 

 away from the center, and it was not 

 difficult to find flowers in which these 

 peculiarities were carried so far that both 

 the style and all the stamens were found 

 lying flat upon the floral envelopes and 

 pointing in opposite directions. Latef, 

 however, and after fecundation has taken 

 place, both the style and the stamens par- 

 tially or completely resume the vertical 

 position. * 



The aid which insects render to plants 

 in procuring cross-fertilization is not their 

 only service in return for the work of as- 

 similation performed by the roots and 

 leaves which constitute the plant the true 

 producer in the organic economy. Many 

 of them sacrifice their lives to the needs of 

 the plant and the plant appropriates the 

 bodies of its insect prey as systematically 

 as does the swallow or the fly-catcher. If 

 the great mass of insects, along with other 

 animals, devour plants for their sustenance, 

 so do certain plants as regularly devour 

 insects for their sustenance, and not a few 

 are the cases in which the imago pays back 

 to the plant with its life and its body the 

 board-bill which it contracted in the larval 

 state. 



This fact which was so long denied and 

 then doubted, is now, thanks to the labors 

 of Charles Darwin, fully established, and it 



* Since the presentation of this paper and the subsequent 

 publication of "my observations in the Gardener^ s Monthly^ 

 It has been l(indly pointed out to me by Prof. Asa Gray that the 

 tlichogamous \^ p7-otandrous^^) nature of several Sabbatias 

 ( S, chtoroides^ S. stellaris b^c.) as well as the peculiar posi- 

 tion of the style, had been previously noticed in his works. 

 " The opposite position of the stamens," lie however adds, 

 " is quite new to me. * * * " We had not noticed this in 

 the stamens of 5'. chloroides nor in .S". steliaris" My observa- 

 tions were repeated in 1873 and the results, accompanied by 

 ilrawings, were communicateil to the Association at its 

 Saratoga meeting. They fully confirmed the above description. 



exhibits another important side of that 

 closely-woven web which holds the two 

 kingdoms together. 



The number of Insectivorous Plants is 

 far greater than was at first supposed pos- 

 sible, and it is by no means probable that 

 all of those endowed with this attribute, 

 even among species systematically well 

 known, have yet been recognized as be- 

 longing to this class. 



There are two distinct ways in which 

 plants appropriate insects, for the entrap- 

 ping of which many remarkable devices 

 exist. One method is almost wholly analo- 

 gous to that by which the same function is 

 performed by animals and constitutes a 

 true digestion, the insect being decom- 

 posed by the action of a gastric juice, and 

 the materials already assimilated passing 

 directly into the circulation of the plant. 

 The other method consists in the absorp- 

 tion by the roots and lower parts of the 

 plant of the highly nitrogenous liquor 

 formed of the decayed bodies of insects 

 dissolved in rain-water. The first class 

 utilize the insects as food, the second as 

 manure. Exhaustive experiments have 

 proved that in both these ways the plant 

 is benefited and a true nourishment de- 

 rived. Plants of this kind, of necessity, 

 partially lose their power, both of radical 

 and of parenchymatous assimilation, and 

 become in so far parasitic, but strange as 

 it may sound, parasitic on animals.* 



Interesting as are these physiological 

 facts, the morphological changes which 

 take place in plants to adapt them to 

 insectivorous habits, are if possible still 

 more remarkable. 



As in cross-fertilization it is the flowers, 

 so in insectivorous plants it is the leaves 

 which exhibit these modifications and per- 

 form these functions. The leaves of in- 

 sectivorous plants are usually radical, and 

 the organic matter derived from the bodies 

 of insects finds its way through their por- 

 ous petioles to the region of the roots, 

 whence it enters directly into the circula- 

 tion, as if taken from the soil. 



* Etnpiisit ntHsar is a kind of mould par.isitic on the house- 



