INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS 65 



There is another Bengal plant which, though it 

 develops no pitchers, is highly insectivorous. This 

 is a small herb (Drosera Burmanni) (Plate II) found 

 in the fields during the cold season in Burdwan and 

 Chota Nagpur districts. It may be seen in large 

 numbers in the waste lands bordering the road from 

 Giridih to the Pareshnath Hills. They are of a red- 

 dish colour, and the leaves are covered with glandular 

 hairs called tentacles. The rosette of radical leaves 

 looks from a distance like a circular red spot caused 

 by the spittle of a man when chewing betel (pan); 

 hence the plant in some districts goes by the name of 

 paner-pik. " Each hair secretes a drop of fluid which 

 shines so bright in the sun that insects are induced to 

 alight upon it in the hope of getting a sip of water. 

 The fluid, however, is so sticky that the unfortunate 

 insects cannot get away from it. Every effort they 

 make puts the hope of escape farther and farther 

 away; for gradually the hairs collect, bend over, and 

 take a firm hold of them. The insects caught by this 

 trap soon lose their strength and die, and are decom- 

 posed and absorbed." — Sir George Watt. 



Drosera peltata, var. lunata (Plate II), another in- 

 sectivorous plant, though not of Bengal proper, is 

 common in the Khasi Hills (Shillong) of Assam. It is 

 a small annual of about 6 to 8 inches in height, with 

 a rosette of radical leaves and also alternate cauline 

 leaves, or only the latter, and a thin erect stem which 

 sometimes gives off one or two branches towards the 

 apex. Whether radical or cauline, the leaves, as the 

 name signifies, are peltate, crescent-shaped, about one- 

 fourth of an inch in length and breadth, petiolate; 

 and the lamina is beset with glandular tentacles which 

 are long on the margin, especially at the horns of the 

 crescent, and gradually become shorter and shorter 



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