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The Third Lesson: The Creative Will.745
Some of these not only float, but actually swim, having spider-like filaments,
which wriggle like legs, and actually propel the tiny seed along to its new
home. A recent writer says of these seeds that “so curiously lifelike are their
movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these tiny objects,
making good progress through the water, are really seeds, and not insects.”
The leaves of the Venus’ Fly-trap fold upon each other and enclose the
insect which is attracted by the sweet juice on the leaf, three extremely
sensitive bristles or hairs giving the plant notice that the insect is touching
them. A recent writer gives the following description of a peculiar plant. He
says: “On the shores of Lake Nicaragua is to be found an uncanny product
of the vegetable kingdom known among the natives by the expressive
name of ‘the Devil’s Noose.’ Dunstan, the naturalist, discovered it long ago
while wandering on the shores of the lake. Attracted by the cries of pain
and terror from his dog, he found the animal held by black sticky bands
which had chafed the skin to bleeding point. These bands were branches
of a newly-discovered carnivorous plant which had been aptly named the
‘land octopus.’ The branches are flexible, black, polished and without leaves,
and secrete a viscid fluid.”
You have seen flowers that closed when you touched them. You remember
the Golden Poppy that closes when the sun goes down. Another plant, a
variety of orchid, has a long, slender, flat stem, or tube, about one-eighth
of an inch thick, with an opening at the extreme end, and a series of fine
tubes where it joins the plant. Ordinarily this tube remains coiled up into a
spiral, but when the plant needs water (it usually grows upon the trunks of
trees overhanging swampy places) it slowly uncoils the little tube and bends
it over until it dips into the water, when it proceeds to suck up the water
until it is filled, when it slowly coils around and discharges the water directly
upon the plant, or its roots. Then it repeats the process until the plant is
satisfied. When the water is absent from under the plant the tube moves
this way and that way until it finds what it wants—just like the trunk of an
elephant. If one touches the tube or trunk of the plant while it is extended