HOW PLANTS DBINK. 71 



and Asiatic marsh-plants. The leaves of teasel 

 grow opposite one another, joining the stem at 

 the base, so as to form between them a sort of 

 cup or basin, which will hold water. If you 

 look close into this water you will find that it 

 is often full of dead midges and ants ; and the 

 plant puts forth long strings of living protoplasm 

 into the water, which suck up the decaying 

 juices of these insects, and use them for the 

 manufacture of more protoplasm and chlorophyll. 

 In this case, water is used both as a trap and as 

 a solvent ; the insects are first drowned in the 

 moat, and then allowed to decay and digest 

 themselves in it. 



Teasel, however, is but a simple example of 

 this method of insect-catching. Several American 

 marsh-dwellers, collectively known as pitcher- 

 plants, carry the same device a great deal 

 further. They are far more advanced and 

 developed water-trap setters. The Canadian 

 side-saddle plant allures insects into its vase- 

 shaped leaves, which are filled with sugar and 

 water. This is just the same plan which we 

 ourselves employ to catch flies when we trap 

 them in a glass vessel by means of a sweetened 

 and sticky liquid. The pitchers are formed by 

 leaves which join at the edges; they are at- 

 tractively coloured, so as to allure the flies ; and 

 they secrete on their walls a honeyed liquid, 

 which entices the victim to venture further and 

 further down the fatal path. But the inner sides 

 of the vase are set with stiff down ward -pointing 

 hairs, which make it easy to go on, but im- 

 possible to crawl back again. So the flies creep 



