Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1875 — Carnivorous Plants. [ARTICLE]

Carnivorous Plants.

The British Medical Journal states that at the last meeting of the Edinburgh Botan- , ical Society Dr. T. A. G. Balfour reported some interesting experiments! op the Bionoea muscipala (Venus Fly-trap, native of Wilmington, N. C.). The irritability under which the leaf contracts seems to be limited to six delicate hairs that are so. situated-on stirfact bf the leaf tha| an insect itittst trt - nsrh i thenl in crowding over it. Dr. Balfour touched every other part of the lefft with a needle, and no response followed; but the instant the base of one of the leaves was hit the leaf closed quick as a flash. Chloroform dropped on a hair caused the leaf to ckfee immadiately, but water had no such effect. When the leaf shut upon an object incapable of affording nutrition, like a bit of wood or a dried fly, it opened again very soon. But, when it closed upon a live fly, caterpillar or spider, the contraction lasted for about three weeks, during which time the inner surface of the leaf gave out a viscous, acid secre. tion. It was noted, also, that this viscid-se-cretion was only produced when an ipsect was captured. In tlie case of a fat spider it was very abundant, but, when a shriveled fly was inclosed, very little was poured out. As evidence that the plant obtains nourishment from the insects thus captured and digested, Dr. Balfour pointed to the facts that young plants of the Dionoea placed under bell glasses, from which, of course, insects were excluded, did not thrive as well as those that were left free; and that while a bit of beef wrapped in a leaf of any other plant became putrid, a bit inclosed by the Dionaa remained en- ‘ tirely inodorous, but soon lost its red color and was gradually disintegrated and reduced to ptilp. ' i ,

The following were among the eccen- ! tricitics of a Minnesota tornado: A pine' stick twd inches square was driven into an elm-tree with such force that it was fairly bedded in the ‘ living wood. A‘ woman, Mrs. Patrick Tully, was carried a distance of five rods, clear across, one ravine and deposited in another. A farmer named Edward Pareau, living two miles south of Menflota, owned a .little flock of fifteen sheep when the ‘ storm etruck his place, and of this number eleven were missing. Subsequently eight ofi them were found-in the mile from his house. Twotof tiiem-wer| fofind pinned together by atioartf that had been driven, through the bodies of the poor animals and then into the ground, a fact which will be* considered as suggestive gs anew mode for “stAAging” mhtfon.— Minneapolis Tribune. ■» »>:’ r The Mennonites who have settled in the Northwestern States say that it is an error to call the insect which has been desolat-. ing the country a grasshopper. They recognized in it the locust of their own Southern Russia as soon as they laid their eyea upon it. A young lady in Massachusetts canceled her marriage engagement because “dad believes that we have a goldmine op our farm.”