The uses and wonders of plant-hairs / by Kate E. Styan.

  • Styan, Kate E.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The uses and wonders of plant-hairs / by Kate E. Styan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whose agency in bringing about cross fertilization is much desired, can reach the flower in safety, but all dangerous visitors are effectually and cleverly kept at bay or^ caught and killed. The amphibious Persecaria (Polygonum amphibium), when growing on land, develops glandular hairs for a like purpose; but when growing in its natural habitat, water, no hairs are formed on the stem or any other part, water being doubtless a sufficient natural protection from insect depredators. In a small way, plants like these, that entrap unwelcomed insect visitors by means of a “ lime,” and absorb to a certain degree some of their nitrogenous matters, approach very closely to the true insectivorous species—such as Sundew (Drosera) and Butterwort (Pinguicula)—but act in a more simple way. In the Sundew and Butterwort, the process of entrapping, digesting, and absorbing insect-matters is very elaborate, and most wonderfully carried out by means of the large glandular hairs (tentacular hairs) that cover the upper leaf-surfaces. As most readers know, the plant is an inhabitant of boggy lands, soils destitute in those special chemicals, nitrogen and sulphur, absolutely essential to the formation of protoplasm—the life-giving element of plant-life —and possessing few of the other chemicals most needed for the same purpose. To com- pensate for this, we find that nature has formed the plant so as to be able to catch, kill, and digest insects as a means of nourishment, and for this purpose she has clothed the Sundew’s leaves with masses of red-hued, bulbous-shaped hairs, capable of movement, and filled with sticky, acrid, digestive fluid that is odoriferous, hence attractive to insects. No sooner does an insect alight on a leaf than its