AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

This survey of the carnivorous plants shows that although they belong, for the most part, to unrelated families, they have many characteristics in common. Their native habitats is, in the majority of cases, moist or swampy regions where the soil is lacking in the available elements which are so necessary to the higher plants. The carnivorous plants have therefore developed a means of obtaining these essential elements by digesting insects and other small animals. Since the roots are necessary to the plant simply for water absorption and anchorage they are generally small or missing in some plants living entirely submersed in water. The trap structures, though differing widely in their mechanisms, are physiologically similar, and all traps are modified leaves. To our knowledge little or nothing has been written to adequately explain the very limited distribution of most of these plants. These plants, marvels of the plant kingdom, merit far more attention and investigation than has been civen them by botanists and bio-chemists.