THE ASCENDING SAP 



117 



fat by feeding on the sappy tissues of 

 plants appears to us a natural and even 

 justifiable provision, but that the plants 

 should retaliate by setting traps for their 

 tormentors is not so easily accounted for ; 

 and we are immensely shocked when we 

 find that not a few of them actually feed 

 upon their captive enemies. Is not this, 

 we cry 



A sort of retrograding ? 



Surely the fare 



Of flowers is air, 



Or sunshine sweet. 



They shouldn't eat 

 Or do aught so degrading. 



But what these wilful children of Flora 

 should do, and what they actually do, 

 are of course two very different things ; 

 and when all is told, and poets and 

 moralists have had their say, the stubborn 

 fact remains that certain plants do feed 

 on insects ; and that nitrogen, potash, etc., 

 may be obtained from other sources than 

 the soil, and be absorbed into the plant by 

 other organs than the root. At the same 

 time it should never be forgotten that the 

 root is the chief organ of absorption that 

 is, of all the nutrient elements save carbon 

 and, moreover, that insectivorous plants 

 occupy but a small corner of the Veget- 

 able Kingdom. As already remarked, 

 they have apparently taken to this method 

 of obtaining nitrogenous food because 

 there is so little of it in the soil where 

 they grow. 



Although the plants in this case have 

 completely turned the tables upon their 

 persistent enemies, the animals, it is in- 

 teresting to note that the latter again retaliate through some of their 

 members. One of the Lemurs is known to raid the larger species of 

 Nepenthes for the sake of the dead insects, and even the insects send at 

 least one representative to reduce the spoils of the plant. Mr. F. G. Scott 

 Elliot says: "Near Fort Dauphin, in Madagascar, 1 found great quantities 

 of Nepenthes madagascariensis. Almost every pitcher was one-third to two- 



Photo by] ' [S. L. Bastin. 



Fio. 151. Sarracenia. 



A pitcher cut open to show the interior and the 

 black mass of organic matter at the bottom, result- 

 ing from the plant's digestion of captured insects. 



