Another example, also indigenous, is that graceful marsh plant, the
butterwort (_Pinguicula vulgaris_), whose broad, tongue-shaped leaves,
arranged in the form of a rosette, have been modified into an insect
trap by the turning up of their edges, while the middle is deepened
into a longitudinal groove (Fig. 25). The whole upper surface of the
leaf is covered with an enormous number of little mushroom-shaped
glands (_B_, _C_, _Dr_), which secrete a viscid slime. Insects which
settle on the leaf stick fast, and as the glands continue to pour out
more and more slime, while at the same time the edges of the leaf,
stimulated by the struggling of the insect, curl over still farther,
the victims are drowned in the slime, and ultimately absorbed; for
this secretion is so powerful that even fragments of cartilage are
dissolved by it in forty-eight hours. Midges and mayflies in particular
fall victims to this plant, which is common in marshy places both in
mountain and plain.
[Illustration: FIG. 25. Butterwort (_Pinguicula vulgaris_). _A_, the
entire plant, showing the incurved margins of the leaves and some
insects caught by the secretion. _B_, cross-section through a leaf,
enlarged 50 times. _r_, the margin. _Dr_, _Dr_^l, two kinds of glands.
_C_, a portion of the leaf-surface, magnified 180 times.]
We must also mention the sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_), which takes
its name from the seeming dewdrops that sparkle in the sun on the
leaves, or rather on the rounded extremities of long and rather thick
cilia-like hairs which cover the whole upper surface of the leaf. In
reality the apparent dewdrops consist of a sticky, clear, viscid slime,
which is secreted by the glandular ends of the pin-shaped hairs or
'tentacles.' Insects which settle on the leaf are caught by the slime,
and in this case also an acid, pepsin-containing fluid is secreted,
which gradually effects the digestion of the soluble parts of the
insect. It is especially noteworthy that it is not only those tentacles
which are in contact with the insect that take part in its digestion
and absorption, for all the others gradually alter their position from
the moment when any nitrogenous body, be it a fragment of flesh or an
insect, touches any of them. All begin to curve slowly towards the
stimulating object (Fig. 27), so that, after one to three hours, all
the tentacles have their heads towards it, and collectively pour out
their digestive juice upon it.
[Illustration: FIG. 26. The Sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_), after
Kerner.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27. A leaf of the Sundew, with half of the
tentacles curved in upon a captured insect; enlarged 4 times.]
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