INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS, a collec tive name for plants that entrap insects and other small animals, feeding on the captures by a process of true digestion, or absorbing the results of decomposition. The best known is the Venus' fly-trap (Dion** muscipula) of the order Droseracem. It is a native of the peat bogs of the Carolinas. The halves of the teat blade are movable on the mid-rib, and furnished on each margin with teeth. On each half of the blade are three sensitive hairs, and the whole surface is thickly set with digestive glands. Immediately an insect touches one of these hairs the blades close, the teeth interlock, the glands exude their digestive juice on the insect, and the products are absorbed. In the common sun dew (Drosera rotundifolia) the same result is obtained by means of stalked glands, which also function as tentacles, bending over to secure the prey; and in the butterwort (Pinguicula vul garis) the margins of the leaf are the agents of capture, while the digestive juice is excreted by stalked and sessile glands on the leaf blade. Aldrovandia vesiculosa, an aquatic plant of southern and central Europe, has leaves which function like those of Venus' fly-trap. Droso phyllum lusitanicum, a native of Portugal and northwestern Africa, has stalked glands as well as sessile, but they do not bend over to confine prey. Their viscid secretion acts as a digestive ferment as well as a means of capture. Blad
der-wort (Utriculoria) is a floating plant com mon in lakes and pools. The traps or blad ders, found on the submerged branches, are modified leaf organs, and present a general re semblance to the commonest prey water-fleas. The trap is entered by a door, which opens in ward, hut not outward, so that escape is im possible. The products of decomposition are absorbed by the cross-shaped cells lining the inner surface of the bladder. In the pitcher plants compound leaves are modified into pitcher-like receptacles, sometimes with a lid, as in the common Sarracenia purpurea and the southern S. flava, both growing in bogs. The attractions for insects are bright colors, and glands secreting nectar. Beneath the sweet bait is a slippery surface, affording insecure foot hold, and insects pitching thereon fall into the secretion at the bottom. In the Old World genera Nepenthes and Cephalotus there appears to be a true digestive process; in the group of which the American germs Sarracenia is the only type, the products of decomposition are absorbed, and in the genus Dischidia, from India and Australia, pitchers store water for use by the plant. Consult Darwin, 'Insectivorous Plants.' See CARNIVOROUS PLANTS.