Life of Charles DarwinBettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Science
Life of Charles Darwin
Bettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
It is interesting to note the extreme caution with which the great
naturalist speculates upon the mode by which the varied members of the
sun-dew order became modified from an ordinary plant-form to such a
remarkable degree. The details are too special for quotation here. He
suggests, but he does not in the slightest degree dogmatise. For many
years to come Darwin's suggestions and comments must be the pregnant
soil out of which fruitful research will spring, and his caution will
remain the model, to depart from which will but sow hindrances in the
path of scientific progress.
The order to which the butterwort and the bladderworts belong also
afforded valuable results. The leaf of the butterwort bears glandular
hairs, and its margins curve inwards when excited by contact of various
bodies, especially living insects, and, at the same time, these are
caught in the viscid secretion of the glands, and their juices absorbed
by the plant. The bladderworts are even more remarkably constructed, for
they have a portion of their leaves developed into subaqueous bladders,
with a narrow entrance beneath, defended by a complex valve, which
facilitates the entrance of water insects or crustaceans, but prevents
their exit. The whole interior of the bladder is lined with transparent
four-branched protoplasmic hairs, but nevertheless the bladderwort is
unlike the preceding plants in having no power of digesting its prey,
however long it may remain in captivity. Yet there is no doubt that the
imprisoned creatures do decay in their watery cell, and that the hairs
just described absorb the products of their decay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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