WHITE AND GREENISH WILD FLOWERS 



that if this task of extermination had not been success- 

 fully maintained by the birds, the same economic 

 condition would have been developed in certain plants. 

 And while we listen to reports of decreasing bird life, 

 it is well to consider that there is also a corresponding 

 increase in plant life. While certain birds are really 

 becoming rare or even extinct, so are certain flowers. 

 On the other hand, certain birds are increasing, and 

 even so are certain flowers. So we find an active work- 

 ing force with an assisting support and an unlimited 

 reserve always available. The latter includes certain 

 fungi that attack and overcome swarms of insects 

 besides the real catch-them-alive plants like the Venus 

 Flytrap, Pitcher Plant, Dogbane, Catchfly, and the 

 Sundew. The last is a small flowered species having a 

 smooth, red, slender flowering stalk, rising from four 

 to ten inches high from a low spreading rosette of the 

 most curious leaves. This remarkable, small, circular 

 green leaf is suddenly narrowed into a short, flat, hairy 

 stem. The upper surface is slightly hollowed, and is 

 covered with irregular, fine, reddish hairs, which exude 

 a colourless, sticky fluid from their tips, that sparkles 

 like dew drops. These transparent, glittering drops 

 are peculiar to the Sundews and seem to attract tiny 

 passing insects which, alighting on the leaf, immediately 

 become stuck in the gummy substance. Then the 

 slowly curling hairs hopelessly entangle their struggling 

 prisoner, and finally the leaf, closing inward, enfolds its 

 victim and ends its life. At this stage the leaf literally 

 digests its prey with the aid of a new flow of a peptic 



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