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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 



FlG. 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 



