Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-17
PLANT CANNIBALs.

PLANT CANNlBALC.
The Devils Snare Found in Nicaragua-it
Lives on the Blood Of Any Animal Ihas
! Gets Into Its Clutches, and Never suffers
From Dyspepsia.
Some years ago a striking story was pup
! lished in France describing a wonoeriui
fiesh-eating plant discovered by great DOT
anist. If we remember rightly the STORY
| recounted how a certain collector dlscov-
cred plant of the fytrap species OF so gF
| gantic size that it could consume huSe
masses of raw meat. just as the hy-catcn-
ing plant snaps upa fly and draws nutrF
| ment from she fiy's dead body, says writer Il
in the London Spectator, SO this one fed 1tseit
on the legs of mutton and slrloins OF pee1
which were thrown into its ravening nav.
| The botanist in the story, for some reason,
| possibly fear of having his plant destroyed
as dangerous to public safety, keeps the ex-
istence of the plant secret and preserves it
| in a locked-up conservatory. His wife, now
ever, who is made miserable by his aDSorp-
tion of minu-he thinks of nothing but now
to feed and improve his wonderful ana ias-
c1nating plant-determines to follow MIN.
This she does, accompanied by an old scnool
friend of the husband.
When the pair reach the inner conserva-
tory they see, to their horror, the infatuated
botani st tossing bleeding joints of raw meat
into the huge jaws of a giant fytrap They
are at first petrified with horror. At last,
however, the wife throws herself into the
arms of her husband and implores him to
give up dwelling upon the horrible carn1v-
orous monstrosity which he has discovered
and reared. Unfortunately, however, the
wife in appealing to her husband goes too
close to the plant. Its huge eentacles sur
round her and then proceed to drag her in,
and the two Supplied men see the plant be-
gin to devour its victim. fortunately, how
ever, the friend catches sight OF an ak lying
near, and seizing this he strikes at the root
OF the plant A few frenzied blows do the
necessary work. and the tiesh-eating plant
tumbles to the ground and releases from its
clutches the terrified woman. The botanlst,
however, cannot survive his most cherished
discovery, and with the exclamation, "l Ou
have killed my plant!" he falls back dead.
1t Is a Vegetable Octopus.
The story is good enough a story, but if
we are to believe an article said in the Re
riev of ReuieUs to be taken from Lucifer-we
say said" advisedly, because we have
looked in the October Lucifer and can find
no such article, aud therefore presume there
must be some mistake-it is only another in
stance of fiction being prophetic, and antici-
pating scientific discovery. According to
the article quoted by Mr.. Stead, there has
been discovered in Nicaragua a fesh-eat1ng,
or rather, man-eating plant, which for
horror is quite the equal of the novelist's
imagination. This plant is found, it is as
serted, in Nicaragua, and is called by the
natives 1.-The DEVILS snare" In form it is a
kind of vegetable octopus OR devil fish, and
is able to drain the blood ofany living thing
which comes within its clutches. We give
the story with all reserve, but it must be ad-
m1tted to be circumstantial enough in all It's
details to be possible. IL appears that Mr.
Dunstan, naturalist, has lately returned
from Central America, where he spent two
years in the study Of the plants and animals
of those regions. In one of the swamps
which surround the great Nicaragua Lake,
he discovered the singular growth of which
we are writing. "He was engaged in hunt
ing for botanical and chronological specl-
mems when he'heard his dog cry out, as If in
agony, from a distance. Running to the spot
whence the animals cries came, Mr.. Duncan
found him envelOped in a perfect network
of what seemed to be q fine, rOpe-lil<e tissue
of roots and fibers.
A Dog Captured by Its Arms.
"The plant or vine seemed composed en-
tirely of bare, interlacing stems, resembling,
more than anything else the brances of the
weeping willow denuded of its foliage, but
of a dark, nearly black hue, and covered
with thick, viscid gum that exuded from
the pores" Drawing his knife, Mr.. Dunstan
attempted to cut the poor beast free; but it
was with the very greatest difficulty that he
managed to sever the f1eshy muscular fibers
of the plant. When the dog was extricated
from the coils of the plant. Mr.. Dustan saw,
to his horror and amaZenent, that the dogs
body was bloodstained, "while the skin ap-
peared to have been actually sucked or
puckered in Spots" and the animal stag
gered as If from exhaustion "In cutting
GUS fingers about Mr. Dunstan's hand, and
it required no slight force to free the MEM
ber from its clinging grasp, which left the 4
flesh red and bistered. The gum exuding
81 Sh-da
remarkably adhesive, and of q disagreeable
animal odori powerful and nauseatin9 to in
hale" The natives, we are told. showed
we have noted above, they call the "devils
SNARE" and they recounted to the natural
lists many stories OF its death-dealing pow
ers.
Plants of q Similar Nature.
The neighborhood inhabited by that Anna
zonian tribe who by the use of some secret
can reduce a human corpse to a tenth of its
original size, and so produce perfectly pro-
portioned miniature mummy of the dead
man, would have been a good locality in
which to "place' the tale of the cannibal
plant. Again, Nicaragua is within the
tropics and plant life there is therefore
specially gross and vigorous. Besides, there
is no inherent impossibility in the idea of a
as to whether evolution las or has not hap
pened to develop the fly-eating plant on a
sufficiently large enough scale to do what is
related OF the vampire vine.
No one who has seen the ugly snap which |
that tiny vegetable crab, Venus tiy-trap, |
gives when the hairs inside its mouth are |
tickled by the human finger in the way that |
q fly would tickle them by walking, can |
doubt for a moment that the development |
of plant capable of eating sucking the |
blood of a man, is only matter of degree. |
Even in England there are plants which act |
on a small scale exactly the part asserted to
be played by the vampire vine-ior example, |
Lathrsea squamaria, the toothwort, "a pale |
parasite found in British |
woods" There are known to be several |
hundred dicotyledons which, in some way or
other, catch and live on animal food. From
such a basis the evolution of giant and
dicotyledon is within the bounds |
OF possibility.
Experimenting With Their Digestion.
We cannot help hoping very much that
the story of the vampire vine will turn out |
to be true for if it does, the botanists will
be able to try some curious experiments as
to how these vegetables which are half
animals, digest, and whether their move
ments can properly be regarded as muscular
1t is true that Darwin admin
istered extremely homeopathic doses (OOOs95
of a milligramme) of nitrate of ammonia to
q sundew, and found the plant responded to
the drug exhibited: but it would be far
easier to conduct experiments on n larger
plant. Even as it is, we know that the
insect eating plants secrete not only an
acid, but ''peptonising ferment' for the
purposes OF digestion. They also feed, like
animals, ION substances at IL high chemical
level" More than 150 years ago, Linneus
noted that the Lapps "used the butterwort
% ferment @ which the plant has s in
addition to the digestive or peptic." Again,
we are told that DR.. Burden Sanderson has