INSECTIVOROUS TLANTSo 187 



XV. 



INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 1 



MARY TREAT. 



THERE are many seemingly strange things in 

 nature, but perhaps none more remarkable than 

 the fact that some plants kill and consume small 

 animals, thus reversing the order of nature's laws, 

 or as we have been taught to look upon her laws. 



The most common of these plants are the Sun- 

 dews or Droseras. There is scarcely a swamp in 

 any part of our country, either North or South, 

 which does not contain one or more species of 

 these interesting plants. The leaves of the dif- 

 ferent species are covered with hair-like glands or, 

 more properly, tentacles surmounted with glands, 

 which exude a clear, viscid fluid that glistens in 

 the sunshine like tiny drops of dew, from which 

 the plants take the name of Sundew. 



The Eound-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) 

 is more often found in the Northern States than 



1 The first experiments on the digestion of animal substances by 

 plants were made by Kanby on Dionaea (1865) and by Mrs. Treat on 

 Drosera (1871). In 1875, Darwin published " Insectivorous Plants." 



