5o FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



CHAPTER III. 



CARNIVOROUS PLANTS— VENUS'S FLY-TRAP. 



BELONGING to the same natural order of plants 

 as the Sundews, Venus's Fly-trap, or, botanically, 

 Dioncea muscipula, has recently been much harassed 

 by experiments to test its flesh-eating capacity. 

 It is not a British native, but an inhabitant of 

 damp places in the eastern parts of North Carolina, 

 so that its relationship to our Sundew may be de- 

 scribed as that of an " American cousin." In like 

 manner it will grow and flourish in wet moss, 

 without any soil, and consists of a rosette of 

 leaves, which radiate front a centre, but both leaves 

 and tufts are larger, and more conspicuous, than 

 in the Sundew. The foot-stalk, of the leaves is 

 flattened out, and leaf-like. The blade of the leaf 

 is somewhat rounded in outline, and composed 

 of two lobes, which are hinged down the centre, 

 so that the lobes rise up, and apply themselves 

 together face to face. Around the margin of the 

 lobes stands a row of bristles, which will be more 

 fully described shortly. With a coloured figure of 

 this plant, published ninety years ago in " Shaw's 



