Alaska sentinel., 1903-01-29
CURIOUS VEGETABLE FLY"
Modern Science Explains Tow Worm
 Becomes Plant.

Modern Science Explains Tow Worm 1 Becomes a Plant.
 A few years ago a queer worm was discovered in South America that ap- 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 1 full tales of the fifteenth century, in which travellers assured their credulous listeners of plant in Central Asia 1 Tibet, to be exact-whch produced small lambs, which calmly proceeded to graze when they fell to the earth from the branches. The fifteenth century writers did not tell us whether these lambs grew on pea vines Ur on mint stalks, but then medieval science was rarely explicit. Modern science Is more exacting. and when a traveller comes home with q story which Is q little diff ticult 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 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 IL sees. So when this apparently indis- putabe evidence of animal life turned to vegetable was placed before it, 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 a fungus that sapped the life of Its victim as 1t tiDurished its branches of false pretense in the air.
 The seed of the fungus, which IS found the world over. sometmes finds successful lOdgment in or about the head of some worm. It does not kill at once, but takes root and spr uts. in shape not unlike a horn. to the great inconvenience of the caterpillar. The horn continues to grow, and the unhap- py insect finds itself less able to eat. It bures tself-in despair, perhaps and the root, veritable Jack the Giant Killer, waves triumphant over his vic tim.
 The horn grows to the surface and 1 forms a bulbous 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 tbe body, preserving the | ,t.bi In, h.. ont erpillar completely. The transformed worm Is now hard and dry, like root. and Is a genuine curiosity to look at. l Nor are larvae the only forms this 1 fungus attacks. The museum shows common black wasp-mud dauber- which has the fatal stems growing from his head and seyenteen-year locust k i also among the contents of this box of 1 insect tragedies.
 Cordyceps, or torrubia. to give this i pirate his scientific name, is found ill i his largest size in New Zealand and China, besides South America, although ] he Is known In all countries and has rel atiyes in the United States. The Agri cultural Department some years ago 1 tried to make him and his extensive family of cousln-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 gees only where he will.
 In China cordyceps chinesis Is dug up bodily, branches and all. tied in 1 punches with red thread and sold as a cure for throat diseases. But the Chi nese will use anything on earth as med icine, Insects especially, and to them every man who searches for entomolOg- l ical specimens is medicine man."
 The first record made of this freak In any scientific work is in letter of Dr. i William Watson, F. k. S, in the "Philo- sophical Transactions,' London, l7G3 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 wingsj resembles the drone, both In size and color, more than any other English insect. In the month of l begins to vegetate. By the latter end of July the tree Is arrived at It's 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 caterpll- lars"
 Dr. Watson, like a true scientist, says a writer in the Washington Star, was skeptical about the accuracy of these i observations. although 1t is doubtful if l he ever learned the exact nature of this remarkable fly" It 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.