Personality of plants

SCIENCE IN THE PLANT WORLD
hairs will cause the trap to shut together and
imprison any sweet-toothed member of the in-
sect world which has happened to stray inside.
An aquatic form of the same thing occurs in
a species of Bladderwort which spreads a leaf-
net cunningly shaped to look like a fish's mouth.
Frightened baby-fishes, accustomed to seek
their mother's throat in time of danger, some-
times swim in and, brushing certain nerve-hairs
near the entrance, cause the lips to close and
leave them to slow dissolution. Both sinister
and scientific are the movements^ of carniverous
plants.
Far from being static or quiescent, the plant
world is a kingdom of energetic, vibratory mo-
tion—a motion which is cool and calculating
and which rarely fails to accomplish its pur-
pose. Even the protoplasm of microscopic
plant cells is in constant movement. If a thin
slice of Sycamore bark be placed under a mic-
roscope, a regular circulation of cell-liquid,
suggestive of blood circulation in animals, can
be observed.
Plants show great skill in their use of water.
It is their storage of liquid in their cells which
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