Insectivorous Plants 



283 



I 



Insectivorous plants — The plants that capture insects 

 and other animals for food are a few bog plants such as 

 sundew and pitcher-plant, and a number of submerged 

 bladderwort s . These 

 have turned tables on 

 the animal world. Liv- 

 ing where nitrogenous 

 plant-foods of the or- 

 dinary sorts are scanty, 

 they have evolved ways 

 of availing themselves 

 of the rich stores of pro- 

 teins found in the bodies 

 of animals. The sun- 

 dew seems to digest its 

 prey like a carnivore; 

 the bladderwort ab- 

 sorbs the dissolved sub- 

 stance like a scavenger. 

 Charles Darwin studied 

 these plants fifty years 

 ago, and his account 

 ('75) is still the best 

 we have. 



The sundew, Dro- 

 sera, captures insects 

 by means of an adhesive 

 secretion from the tips 

 of large glandular hairs 



that cover the upper surface of its leaves (fig. [72 . 

 The leaves are few in number and spatulate in f< irm, and 

 are laid down in a rosette about the base of a stem, 

 flat upon the mud or upon the bed of mosses in the 

 midst of which Drosera usually grows. They are r< d 

 in color, and crowned and fringed with these purple 



Fig. 172. A leaf of sundew with a 

 captured caddis-fly. The glandular 

 hairs are bent downward, their tips 

 in contact with the body of the 

 insect. Other erect hairs show 

 globules of secretion envelopi: \ 

 tips. 



