1859.] REVIEWS. 123 



the morass as a whole, a thing which man's labour should displace, we 

 examine with patient interest into its fastnesses, we find that it nourishes 

 things as bright and beautiful, in their particular way, as those of more 

 favoured regions of the earth. There, amidst delicate forms innumerable, 

 the Sundew sparkles with ruby points, near emerald moss-tufts of a bril- 

 liancy unsui-passed elsewhere ; while, to complete this vegetable emulation 

 of the gems of the mine, ' the amethyst-like Pingtdcula rears its transparent 

 stalks,' and almost eclipses in all but scent the much-loved Violet. 



" The very cm-ious appendages with which the leaves of the Sundew are 

 furnished, consisting of peUucid glands thickly scattered over the upper 

 sm-face, and each exuding a sparkling dewdrop from its ruby tip, have 

 given rise not only to the English name of Sundew, but to the appellation 

 of the plant in most countries ; almost all its names, as will be seen by a 

 reference to the synonyms given at the head of our description, signifying 

 the same thing. The name assigned to it by our botanists {Drosera) is 

 derived from the Greek, and simply means dew ; but the Latin Rossolis is 

 equivalent to the others, which are founded on an opinion — whether exist- 

 ing in fact or not I cannot tell — that these dew-drops only appear on the 

 plant in the day-time, when the sun is above the horizon. Not so poetical 

 is the name of ' Eed-rot,' by which it is distinguished in some of our i-ural 

 districts, on accoimt of its supposed share in the injurious effects experi- 

 enced by sheep which feed on pastures such as it loves, but of which it is 

 most probably quite innocent, as it is in itself of a warm and stimidant 

 nature, added to which it seems to be very doubtful whether sheep eat it. 

 It has, however, received the ' bad name,' and shepherds are, I fear, just 

 as imwilling as other men to acknowledge the injustice of a stigma of their 

 own affixing and their own invention. 



"These glandular hairs are frequently as long as the leaf itself; and as 

 they fringe its edge, and stand up on its sm'face, each exuding a tiny drop 

 of a somewhat glutinous fluid, they give an aspect of great but peculiar 

 beauty to the whole plant ; though this beauty is frequently, to a certain 

 extent, marred by the effect produced by the number of dead insects with 

 which they are spotted ; for every mifortunate insect, or even fragment of 

 broken Grass, etc., which touches a leaf, is instantly rendered unable to 

 quit it again, from the adhesive natm'e of the dew ; and sometimes, too, 

 the leaves may be observed to shrink or fold inwards, as if more closely to 

 entrap the luckless prisoner. I think, however, that, with regard to our 

 Biitish species, this sensible movement or contraction has been somewhat 

 over-rated. The leaves rarely, so far as I have seen, contract, unless a 

 large number of animals, or particles of any other material, are attracted to 

 its surface, and then the movement appears to be more like the result of 

 shrivelling than of vegetable initabiUty, properly so called, in which case it 

 would evidently result from the too great absorption of the dewy secretion 



