WHITE 



Corolla. Of five petals. Pistil. One, with three or five styles, which are 

 sometimes so deeply two-parted as to be taken for twice as many. 



What's this I hear 



About the new carnivora ? 



Can little plants 



Eat bugs and ants 



And gnats and flies ? 



A sort of retrograding : 



Surely the fare 



Of flowers is air, 



Or sunshine sweet ; 



They shouldn't eat, 



Or do aught so degrading ! 



But by degrees we are learning to reconcile ourselves to the 

 fact that the more we study the plants the less we are able to at- 

 tribute to them altogether unfamiliar and ethereal habits. We 

 find that the laws which control their being are strangely sug- 

 gestive of those which regulate ours, and after the disappearance 

 of the shock which attends the shattered illusion, their charm is 

 only increased by the new sense of kinship. 



The round-leaved sundew is found blossoming in many of 

 our marshes in midsummer. When the sun shines upon its 

 leaves they look as though covered with sparkling dewdrops, 

 hence its common name. These drops are a glutinous exuda- 

 tion, by means of which insects visiting the plant are first capt- 

 ured ; the reddish bristles then close tightly about "them, and it 

 is supposed that their juices are absorbed by the plant. At all 

 events the rash visitor rarely escapes. In many localities it is 

 easy to secure any number of these little plants and to try for 

 one's self the rather grewsome experiment of feeding them with 

 small insects. Should the tender-hearted recoil from such reck- 

 less slaughter, they might confine their offerings on the altar of 

 science to mosquitoes, small spiders, and other deservedly un- 

 popular creatures. 



D. Americana is a very similar species, with longer, narrower 

 leaves. 



The thread-leaved sundew, D. filiformis has fine, thread- 

 like leaves and pink flowers, and is found in wet sand along the 

 coast. 



