This is a
_parasite_.[1] It has no need of leaves to carry on the process of making
food. Some parasites with green leaves, like the mistletoe, take the crude
sap from the host-plant and assimilate it in their own green leaves.
Plants that are nourished by decaying matter in the soil are called
_saprophytes_. Indian Pipe and Beech-Drops are examples of this. They need
no green leaves as do plants that are obliged to support themselves.
[Footnote 1: Reader in Botany. XIV. Parasitic Plants.]
Some plants are so made that they can use animal matter for food. This
subject of insectivorous plants is always of great interest to pupils. If
some Sundew (_Drosera_) can be obtained and kept in the schoolroom, it
will supply material for many interesting experiments.[1] That plants
should possess the power of catching insects by specialized movements and
afterwards should digest them by means of a gastric juice like that of
animals, is one of the most interesting of the discoveries that have been
worked out during the last thirty years.[2]
[Footnote 1: See Insectivorous Plants, by Charles Darwin. New York: D.
Appleton and Co., 1875.
How Plants Behave, Chap. III.
A bibliography of the most important works on the subject will be found in
Physiological Botany, page 351, note.]
[Footnote 2: Reader in Botany. XV. Insectivorous Plants.]
5. _Respiration_.--Try the following experiment in germination.
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