Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-12-30
CURIOUS ..vEeeTAeLE FLY.

CURIOUS ..vEGETA6LE FLY"
Modern Science Explains How Worm
Becomes Plant.
A few years ago queer worm was
discovered in South America that APP
parently buried itself and became
plant, stalk springing out OF its head,
while the body formed the root. The
story seemed to rank with the wonder
full tales of the fifteenth century, In
which travellers assured their credulous
! listeners of a plant in Central Asia
Tibet, to be exact-which produced
ito Craze when they fell to the earth
from the branches The fifteenth century
writer's did moi. tell us whether these
lambs grew on pea vines or on mint
stalks, but then medieval science was
rarely explicit. Modern science is more
iexacting, and when a traveller comes
home with a story which Is little diff
ficult to believe he is required to pro-
| duce evidence. Over at the National
Museum the inquirer may be shown
plenty Of evidence in the shape of a
box full Of queer dried roots, with long
stems, and these roots are in the form
of worms, locusts and other small crea-
lures.
Modern science goes further, however,
and refuses to believe even what it
sees. So when this apparently indis-
putable evidence of animal life turned
to vegetable was placed before 1t,
science, still skeptical, got out her
microscope and discovered that the
plant that SO mysteriously sprang from
the head of the poor insect was nothing
of natural growth from the creature
itself, but fungus that sapped the life
Of it's victim as it flourished its
branches of false pretense In the air.
The seed of the fungus, which Is
found the world over, sometimes finds
successful lodgment in or about the
head of some worm. 1t does not kill at
once, but takes root and sprouts, in
shape not unlike horn, to the great
inconvenience Of the caterpillar. The
horn continues to grow, and the unhap-
py insect finds itself less able to eat.
1t buries itself-in despair, perhaps
and the root, veritable Jack the Giant
Killer, waves triumphant over his vic
tim.
The horn grows to the surface and
forms dubious seed-pod, which bursts
to scatter further dread and mischief
among insect tribes. The root of the
fungus, secure in the body of its vic
tim, fills all the body, preserving the
outlines, while absorbing the poor cat
erpillar completely. The transformed
worm is now hard and dry, like a root,
and is a genuine curiosity to look at.
Nor are larvae the only forms this
fungus attacks. The museum shows a
common black wasp-mud dauber-
which has the fatal stems growing from
his head, and a seventeen-year locust is
also among the contents of this box of
insect tragedies.
Cordyceps, Or torrubia, to give this
pirate his scientific name, is found in III
his largest size In New Zealand and
China, besides South America, although
he is known in all countries and has rel
atives In the United States. The Agri-
cultural Department some years ago
tried to make him and his extensive
family of cousin-fungi large and small,
useful by setting them to destroying in
sects injurious to crops, but the attempt
failed. Cordyceps refuses to be of serv-
ice to society; he Is freebooter, and
goes only where he will.
In China eordyceps chinesis is dug
up bodily, branches and all, tied in
punches with red thread and sold as
nese will use anything on earth as med
icine, insects especially, and to them
every man who searches for entomolog-
ical. specimens is medicine man."
The first record made of this freak in
any scientific work is in letter Of Dr.
William Watson, F. R. S., in the "Philo-
sophical Transactions" London, 1853.
where he writes thus to the Royal So
ciety concerning "The Vegetable Fly"
''The vegetable fly is found in the
island Of Dominica and excepting that
it has no Wings resembles the drone, |
both in size and color, more than any
other English insect. In the month of |
May it buries itself In the earth and |
begins to vegetate. By the latter end. of !
July the tree is arrived at its full |
growth and resembles a coral branch,
and is about three inches high, and |
bears several little pods, which, drop |
ping off, become worms, and from |
thence flies like the English caterpil-
lars"
DR.. Watson, like true scientist, says |
a writer In the Washington Star, was |
skeptical about the accuracy of these
observations, although 1t Is doubtful If |
he ever learned the exact nature of this |
ely" 1t was left for nine
teenth century scientists to classify and |
label cordyceps and his large and inter-
esting family, and SO destroy another
travellers tale.