The Strange Story of the Flowers 



violet flowers, of funnel shape, are gummy leaves 

 which close upon their all too trusting guests, 

 but with less expertness than the sun-dew's. 

 The butterwort is but a 'prentice hand in the 

 art of murder, and its intended victims often 

 manage to get away from it. Built on a wry 

 different model is the bladderwort, busy in stag- 

 nant ponds near the sea coast from Nova Scotia 

 to Texas. Its little white spongy bladders, 

 about a tenth of an inch across, encircle the 

 flowering stem by scores. From each bladder a 

 bunch of twelve or fifteen hairy prongs protrude, 

 giving the structure no slight resemblance to an 

 insect form. These prongs hide a valve which, 

 as many an unhappy little swimmer can attest, 

 opens inward easily enough, but opens outward 

 never. As in the case of its cousinry a-land, the 

 bladderwort at its leisure dines upon its prey. 



In marshy places near the mouth of the I 

 Fear River, in the vicinity of Wilmington, North 

 Carolina, grows the Venus' fly-trap, most wonder- 

 ful of all the death-dealers of vegetation. Like 

 much else in nature's handiwork this plant might 

 well have given inventors a hint worth taking. 

 The hairy fringes of its leaves are as responsive to 

 a touch from moth or fly as the sensitive plant 

 itself. And he must be either a very small or a 

 particularly sturdy little captive that can escape 

 through the sharp opposed teeth of its formidable 

 snare. It is one of the unexplained puzzles of 

 plant life that the Venus' fly-trap, so marvellous 

 in its ingenuity, should not only be confined to a 

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