CHAPTER XIII 
DOGBANE AND MILKWEED 
“They lay wait as he that setteth snares.” 
—Jeremiah v. 26. 
THE story of the trap-setting and insect-eating 
plants is a more than twice-told tale. The pitcher- 
plant, which beguiles the hapless fly to his drown- 
ing in its vase-shaped leaves, baited on the outside 
with nectar-bearing glands, and filled with water; 
the Venus’s fly-trap, which shuts up on him and 
crushes him; the sundew (Drosera), which chokes 
him in a sticky secretion, are all known, at least 
by pictures and descriptions, to the tyro in botanic 
study. And we have learned that they all have 
good and sufficient reasons for thus dealing with 
the hapless flies. For, as Darwin has pointed out, 
these plants usually grow rooted in moss, or in 
very sandy and barren soil. Insect-eating leaves 
are probably a device to supply the plant with 
nitrogen by means of the foliage, in circumstances 
where the roots prove powerless for the purpose. 
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