1876. J 
INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 
15 
wliere the peat has carried the seed, the plants are exceedingly beautiful, but are 
no bigger than their brethren of the bog. 
Our author blames the Drosera for having few roots, and says that they serve 
only to imbibe water. The roots of Drosera are by no means out of proportion 
to so small a plant, and if it is growing in moist moss, its abundant hairs would 
imbibe, and do actually imbibe, water enough for its service ; but what kind of 
water does it drink ? Certainy not clear water, like that in which Watercresses 
grow, but peat-water in one case when growing in peat, and water steeped in 
rotten moss in the other case, for a bed of Sphagnum has its lower leaves always 
rotten, and therefore in a thoroughly fit condition to serve as manure to an 
aquatic plant growing in its midst. 
The beauty of the Sundew depends entirely upon its globules, and 
the bait is highly tempting to winged insects that sip nectar for their 
sustenance. At this point the author’s views and mine diverge, for whilst he 
would make us believe that all the beauty of this elegant plant is sacrificed to 
get SQine rotten flies, gnats, midges, &;c., on its fair face, to outrage all the laws 
of order and beauty by forming a paunch out of its tiny leaves, and hence getting 
its supplies from the wrong end of the plant—a source hitherto unneeded, and for 
aught proved to the contrary, hitherto unknown, since this feeding by the leaves 
is a theory as yet on its trial, and far from being settled—I have a theory, 
founded on clear observation, that may be put into the opposite scale. It is 
no invention of my brain, but has come down from trustworthy sources, and it 
is on the very face of it like the flat of God. Whenever anything mars the beauty 
of the works of God, we usually see it hurried off the stage long before its appointed 
time : “ Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” 
There is a sentence in Holy Writ very appropriate to this subject,—“ Dead flies 
cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour.” I 
am prepared to show the pitchers of Nepenthes and Sarracenia half full of dead 
flies, ants, &c., as stinking as need be ; and although the sacred penman may not 
have known the merits of litmus-paper as a test for acidity, his account of the 
flies and the ointment is graphic, and cannot be misunderstood. 
Now if dead flies, wine, beef-tea, &c., are so effective with Drosera^ why idle 
time away with experiments on trying to feed the plant from the wrong end ? 
Why not plant, or rather, sow, the Drosera in rich compost, and give it its fill of 
flesh, and water it with any liquor it can enjoy ? But no one seems to push its 
fortunes in this way, although all agree that it absorbs freely what is offered to it 
at the root-end. When Drosera rotundifolia dies a natural death, it leaves its 
bulk—be it more or less—to feed its successors, and they, if in moss, will get 
rotten Sphagnum of, say, the last seven years to draw their supplies from, 
while the seeds which have fallen on peat-soil will feed on just the same kind of 
food, for the peat will be Sphagnum of ages long gone by. It hath been sagely said 
that “ time has wings when time has need,” and the power of Drosera to move 
is made much of, as if Creation had no parallel to throw off what might be in 
the way of its progress. I maintain that the great work of the Drosera is to 
propagate its species, and the thousands of clean plants to be seen on moss and 
moor testify that that important work is well done without the aid of dead flies. 
Now although the light weight of a moth on the glands of a Drosera disturbs 
the whole equilibrium of the plant, a heavy rain only rinses the tiny herb clean 
from stem to stern, without taking aay other action, and strange to say, that 
after 101 experiments with food, drugs, poisons, &c., the glands resume their 
beauty and place on the plant, all parts doing their duty towards its flowering 
and fruiting. 
