To a naturalist of our day, imbued with those ideas of the solidarity of
organic Nature which such facts as those we have been considering suggest,
the greatest anomaly of all would be that they are really anomalous or
unique. Reasonably supposing, therefore, that the sundew did not stand
alone, Mr. Darwin turned his attention to other groups of plants; and,
first, to the bladderworts, which have no near kinship with the sundews,
but, like the aquatic representative of that family, are provided with
bladdery sacs, under water. In the common species of Utricularia or
bladderwort, these little sacs, hanging from submerged leaves or branches,
have their orifice closed by a lid which opens inwardly--a veritable
trapdoor. It had been noticed in England and France that they contained
minute crustacean animals. Early in the summer of 1874, Mr. Darwin
ascertained the mechanism for their capture and the great success with
which it is used. But before his account was written out, Prof. Cohn
published an excellent paper on the subject in Germany; and Mrs. Treat, of
Vineland, New Jersey, a still earlier one in this country--in the New York
Tribune in the autumn of 1874. Of the latter, Mr. Darwin remarks that she
"has been more successful than any other observer in witnessing the actual
entrance of these minute creatures." They never come out, but soon perish
in their prison, which receives a continued succession of victims, but
little, if any, fresh air to the contained water. The action of the trap is
purely mechanical, without evident irritability in the opening or shutting.
There is no evidence nor much likelihood of proper digestion; indeed, Mr.
Darwin found evidence to the contrary. But the more or less decomposed and
dissolved animal matter is doubtless absorbed into the plant; for the whole
interior of the sac is lined with peculiar, elongated and four-armed very
thin-walled processes, which contain active protoplasm, and which were
proved by experiment to "have the power of absorbing matter from weak
solutions of certain salts of ammonia and urea, and from a putrid infusion
of raw meat."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account