TRANSFORMATIONS OF LEAVES 



57 



while those on the inside turn downward, thus smoothing 

 the way to destruction but making return impossible to 

 a small insect when once it is ensnared. When we 

 remember that these plants are generally found in poor, 

 barren soil, we can appreciate the 

 value to them of the animal diet 

 thus obtained. 



71. Other Examples of insect- 

 catching leaves are the Venus's 

 flytrap, found nowhere but in a 

 certain section of North Carolina, 

 near the coast, and the little sun- 

 dew {Drosera rotundifolia), which 

 Mr. Darwin has made the heroine 

 of his famous book on " Insectiv- 

 orous Plants." It is a delicate, 

 innocent looking little flower, and 

 owes its poetic name to the dewlike 

 appearance of a shining, sticky 

 fluid exuded from the glands on its leaves, which glitter in 

 the sun like diamond dewdrops. It is, however, the most 



109. — Plant of sundew. 





no. — Leaf of sundew ex- 

 panded. 



112. — Sundew leaf digest- 

 ing a meal. 



III. — Leaf closing over 

 captured insect. 



110-112. — Leaves of sundew magnified. 



voracious of all carnivorous plants, the shining, sticky 

 leaves acting as so many bits of fly paper by means of 

 which it catches its prey, When a fly has been trapped, 



