Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/60

50 while the task which he set to himself was to answer the question, "Why the Drosera caught such numbers of insects," the result has been the most valuable contribution to botanical literature which this age has seen. Competent critics pronounce it more important than his works on the "Fertilization of Orchids," and the "Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants;" and in scientific research there is, for Mr. Darwin, no higher standard of comparison than to compare him with himself.

The greater part of the book is given to the record of observations on the phenomena shown by Drosera rotundifolia. This well-known plant bears from two or three to five or six leaves, generally extended more or less horizontally, but sometimes extending vertically upward. The shape and general appearance are shown, as seen from above, in Fig. 1:



The leaves are commonly a little broader than long; the whole upper surface being covered with gland-bearing filaments, or tentacles, as Mr. Darwin calls them, from their manner of acting.

A tentacle consists of a thin, straight, hair-like pedicel, carrying a gland on the summit. Each gland is surrounded by a large drop of extremely viscid secretion; they average about two hundred on each leaf, and as they glitter in the morning sun have given to the plant its poetical name. The tentacles on the central part of the leaf are short and stand upright, and their pedicels are green. Toward the margin they become longer and longer and more inclined outward, with their pedicels of a purple color. Those on the extreme