“But we _are_ interested, keenly interested,” protested Cora.
“I never thought of plants in that way before,” declared Bess.
“It’s opened up an entirely new way of looking at things,” said Paul.
“Are there many kinds of vampire plants?” asked Belle.
“Lots of them,” replied Mr. Morley. “And they use all kinds of devices—hooks, claws, poison, honey, snares and shocks.”
“Desperate characters,” whispered Walter to Jack.
“There, for instance,” continued their host, “is the ‘devil’s snare’ that is found in South America. It has long, snaky tentacles that sweep the ground for many yards in every direction, for all the world like the long suckers of the devil-fish. It gobbles up anything that comes within its reach, insects, mice and larger animals. Once it gets its deadly grip on a victim, it keeps on tightening and tightening until it chokes the life out of it. It has been known to grasp and kill a good-sized dog.”
“The horrid thing!” exclaimed Bess with a little shudder.
“The S. P. C. A. ought to get after it,” laughed Walter.
“There are plants, too,” continued their mentor, “that show intelligence by the way they adapt themselves to changed conditions. The bladderwort, for example, used to live on insects. Perhaps it got a hint somewhere that it could do better on water than on land. At any rate, it became a water plant. It lies just under the surface and imitates the wide-open mouth of a mother fish. The little minnows swim into it to avoid their enemies and as soon as they’re well inside, the mouth closes and the plant regales itself with a fish dinner.
“Then there are the cannibal plants. There are hundreds of trees that have the life juices sucked from them by the parasitic plants that twine around them until they give up the ghost.”
“Just as the trusts do to the common people,” observed Jack.
“Well,” said Cora, drawing a long breath, “I’ve always known that nature was cruel, but I’ve never connected that idea with plants.”
“Cruel everywhere,” assented Mr. Morley, “from man, creation’s crown, to plants, creation’s base.”
They looked with a new interest and a heightened respect at the other specimens he showed, and the time passed so quickly that they were startled, on glancing out of doors, to see how rapidly dusk was coming on.