INSECT- CATCHING PLANTS. 



407 



The opinion is now generally accepted that certain plants, 

 amongst which Dioncea muscipula and the Droseras are con- 

 spicuous, are specially adapted for catching and retaining many 

 small insects, the decomposition of which is beneficial to the 

 plants in some way — perhaps by direct absorption ; and this is 

 where so much misconception has arisen, for popular writers 

 have seized on the subject as one exactly suited to the fluent 

 pens and prolific imaginations of contributors to daily and 

 weekly papers. Exaggeration has crept in, and most extravagant 

 notions have been formed on the subject. People have come 

 to regard the so-called " carnivorous plants " as vegetable mon- 

 sters, constantly lying in wait for their prey, which they seize 

 and devour with the ferocity of carnivorous animals in a smaller 

 degree. To such a length has this gone that when the shelves 

 in the porch of the Orchid-house at Kew were railed off, and the 

 poor plants were protected from the too attentive visitors 

 anxious to test the meat-consuming abilities of the Dionseas and 

 Droseras, a report was spread (and it was gravely repeated in a 

 widely circulating paper) that the railing was intended to 

 preserve the onlookers from any possible accidents which 

 might befall them if the plants were in an especially famished 

 condition. 



Under such circumstances it is not surprising that many 

 reasonable people have gone to the other extreme and freely 

 expressed their disbelief in all that has been said about them. 

 A few days ago I was conversing with the manager of one of the 

 largest nurseries in Great Britain — an able cultivator, a most 

 experienced plantsman, well educated, and even accomplished in 

 some respects — and he summed up his views in these words : " I 

 do not believe that these plants are insectivorous or carnivorous 

 in any sense of the words. That they catch and kill flies and 

 other insects I know quite well, for I have had some hundreds of 

 the plants under my notice during many years ; but I also know 

 that very often this fly-catching business is positively injurious to 

 them, for leaves and pitchers decay by scores when they become 

 partially filled with the decomposed mass, and I cannot perceive 

 what advantage the plants gain from this. I am certain that in 

 a few years the whole theory will be exploded as ridiculous." 

 I have good reason for knowing that others still share this 

 opinion, or I should not have given it so much prominence, 



