. Plant life and plant uses; an elementary textbook, a foundation for the study of agriculture, domestic science or college botany. Botany. 254 LEAVES. (See Figures 92 and 93.) In this plant it is the long out- growths of the leaf surface and not the leaf itself which close down upon the insect. The insect is first caught, however, by getting its feet entangled in a sticky substance which is produced at the swollen ends of the outgrowths. The leaf acts somewhat like a bit of sticky fly paper. This plant gets the name sun-dew from the dew- like appearance of the sticky drops; they do not evapor
. Plant life and plant uses; an elementary textbook, a foundation for the study of agriculture, domestic science or college botany. Botany. 254 LEAVES. (See Figures 92 and 93.) In this plant it is the long out- growths of the leaf surface and not the leaf itself which close down upon the insect. The insect is first caught, however, by getting its feet entangled in a sticky substance which is produced at the swollen ends of the outgrowths. The leaf acts somewhat like a bit of sticky fly paper. This plant gets the name sun-dew from the dew- like appearance of the sticky drops; they do not evaporate in the sun like ordinary dew. How does the food derived from the captured insects get into the body of the plant ? As you already know, it can enter only in liquid form. The change of food from a solid into a liquid con- dition is accomplished by the process called digestion. The captured insects are digested where they are caught. Certain fluids which the plant manufactures act upon them much as the digestive fluids act upon the food which you eat. After this process, the molecules of food enter the plant as solutes. These insect-catching plants all possess chlorophyll. They appear to be as capable of photosynthesis as many of their neighbors which do not catch insects. It is estimated that the food which they derive from insects is small in amount as compared with the food which they obtain by the more usual methods. Insect catching appears to supplement their diet; it does not appear to be their main source of food. The conditions which have caused Fig. 92. — Plant of sun-dew (Drosera).. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Coulter, John G. (John Gaylord), b. 1876. New York, American Book Co
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1913
