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A TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY. 



tentacles ( Fig. 208, //) which when touched, as by an insect, 

 gradually curve inward. Not only this, the stimulus may be trans- 

 mitted to other tentacles and sometimes even the blade itself may 



Fig. 209. Flowering plant of Venus's Flytrap {Dioncea muscipula) of North Carolina, 

 showing the sensitive armed leaves both open and closed, in one of which an insect has been 

 imprisoned. — Drawn from nature by Florence Newton. 



roll inward to some extent, thus entrapping small insects which 

 serve as food to the plant. The leaves of a related plant Dioncea 

 are even more sensitive and when special hairs on the blade are 

 touched that part of the lamina bearing these hairs closes with a 



