Although the bladderworts "prey on garbage," their terrestrial relatives
"live cleanly," as nobler plants should do, and have a good and true
digestion. Pinguicula, or butterwort, is the representative of this family
upon land. It gets both its Latin and its English name from the fatty or
greasy appearance of the upper face of its broad leaves; and this
appearance is due to a dense coat or pile of short-stalked glands, which
secrete a colorless and extremely viscid liquid. By this small flies, or
whatever may alight or fall upon the leaf, are held fast. These waifs might
be useless or even injurious to the plant. Probably Mr. Darwin was the
first to ask whether they might be of advantage. He certainly was the first
to show that they probably are so. The evidence from experiment, shortly
summed up, is, that insects alive or dead, and also other nitrogenous
bodies, excite these glands to increased secretion; the secretion then
becomes acid, and acquires the power of dissolving solid animal
substances--that is, the power of digestion in the manner of Drosera and
Dionaea. And the stalks of their glands under the microscope give the same
ocular evidence of absorption. The leaves of the butterwort are apt to have
their margins folded inward, like a rim or hem. Taking young and vigorous
leaves to which hardly anything had yet adhered, and of which the margins
were still flat, Mr. Darwin set within one margin a row of small flies.
Fifteen hours afterward this edge was neatly turned inward, partly covering
the row of flies, and the surrounding glands were secreting copiously. The
other edge remained flat and unaltered. Then he stuck a fly to the middle
of the leaf just below its tip, and soon both margins infolded, so as to
clasp the object. Many other and varied experiments yielded similar
results. Even pollen, which would not rarely be lodged upon these leaves, as
it falls from surrounding wind-fertilized plants, also small seeds, excited
the same action, and showed signs of being acted upon. "We may therefore
conclude," with Mr. Darwin, "that Pinguicula vulgaris, with its small
roots, is not only supported to a large extent by the extraordinary number
of insects which it habitually captures, but likewise draws some
nourishment from the pollen, leaves, and seeds, of other plants which often
adhere to its leaves. It is, therefore, partly a vegetable as well as an
animal feeder."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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