Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1885 — Comicalities in Plants. [ARTICLE]

Comicalities in Plants.

, There is Jack-in-the-Pulpit; the flower of the plant known as Indian turnip (Arismma triphyllum), who could ever look at one of these singular blossoms without that same stirring of the risible faculties which one experience in perusing a parody or caricature, or witnessing a pantomime ? The very sight of one is prbvpcative of mirth. How many times in my school days did I challenge the teacher’s frown by involuntary giggles at the whimsical look of the imprisoned Jack! Monk’s hood of the genus aconitum has quaint, comical flowers, suggestive of an old lady’s head in a nightcap. The wellknown fly trap (Dionrna muscipula) strikes the mind with all the effect of a joke. The leaves of this plant are fringed with stiff bristles, and fold together when certain hairs on their upper surface are touched, thus seizing the insert that lights on them. Seeing the leaf standing temptingly open, a poor fly pops in sos shelter or food. No sooner has it touched its feet than some sensitive fibres are affected, and the cilia at the top closes in upon the intruder, imprisoning him as effectually as if a boy had taken and closed him in a box. The pitcher-plant or mon-key-cap of the east, although not particularly ludicrous, has a whimsical arrangement which borders closely upon the human economy. To the footstalk of each leaf of this plant, near the base, is attached a kind of bag shaped like a pitcher, of the same consistence and color as the leaf in the earlier state of its growth, but changing with age to a reddish purple. It is girt around with an oblique band or hoop, and covered with a lid neatly fitted, and movable on a kind of hinge or strong fibre, which, passing over the handle, connects the vessel with the leaf. By the shrinking or contracting oi this fibre the lid is drawn open whenever the weather is showery or damp. When sufficient moisture has fallen and the "pitcher saturated, the cover falls down so firmly that evaporation cannot ensue. The water is thus gradually absorbed through the handle in the footstalk of the leaf, sustenance and vigor to the plant. As soon as the pitchers are exhausted, the lids again open and to admit whatever moisturemay fall; and when the plant has produced its seed, and the dry season fairly- sets in, it withers, with all the covers of the pitchers standing open. The flower of the oee "orchis is like a piece of honeycomb, and the bees delight in it Then there is the snap dragon, the corolla of which it cleft, and turned back so as to look like a rabbit’s mouth, especially if pinched on the sides, when the animal appears as if nibbling. The flower of the cock’s comb-and the seed, pod of the mostynia proboscides bear curious resemblance to the objects which have suggested their names. Some kinds of < the mendicago have also curious seed pods, some being like bee hives, some like caterpillars, and some like hedgehogs—the last Being itself an essentially ludicrous object.— Floral Cabij n et