192 



PRACTICAL COURSE IN BOTANY 



impossible to a small insect when once it is ensnared. 

 When we remember that these plants are generally found 



in poor, barren soil, we can appre- 

 ciate the value to them of the ani- 

 mal diet thus obtained. 



210. Flytraps. The most re- 

 markable examples of insect-catch- 

 ing leaves are the Venus's-flytrap, 

 found in the seacoast region of 

 North Carolina, and the sundew 

 (Drosera rotundifolia) , common on 

 the margins of sandy bogs and 

 ponds. The latter is a delicate, 

 innocent-looking little plant, and 

 owes its poetic name to the dewlike 

 appearance of a shining, sticky 

 fluid exuded from glands on its 

 leaves, which glitter in the sun like dewdrops. It is, however, 

 a most voracious carnivorous plant, the sticky leaves acting 

 as so many bits of fly paper by means of which it catches its 



FIG. 260. Plant of sundew. 



261 



263 



262 



FIGS. 261-263. Leaves of sundew magnified : 261, leaf expanded ; 262, leaf 

 closing over captured insect ; 263, leaf digesting a meal. 



prey. When a fly has been trapped, the tentacles close 

 upon it, the edges of the leaf curve inward, making a sort of 

 stomach, from the glands of which an acid juice exudes and 



