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Well, to see those tiny plants you almost have to get down on your hands and knees. Most are a little over an inch high and only an inch or two wide. But the miniature plants are much more interesting than their tiny dimensions might imply.
A close look reveals that the flat oval leaves are bristling with tiny spikes on the edges and on one side. These spike aren’t sharp deterrents like those of a cactus, though. They are supports for crystal clear globules of a sticky liquid.
Those droplets make the little plants look like jewel-studded chandeliers stuck in the wet soil along ponds, flowages and bogs. Each droplet catches the light and twinkles enchantingly, making the sundew patch look like a miniature forest of jewel-laden trees from a bug’s eye view.
That is the view I try to get as I crawl through the squishy mud of the shore, examining the sundews for signs of victims. It’s a messy job, but it has all the thrills of exploring an enchanted and dangerous place — a real life Little Shop of Horrors. Thankfully, the danger wasn’t to me but to any insects that get too close to the innocent looking, glistening leaflets.
The first victim I found was a tiny gnat-sized fly curled up in the folds of a sundew leaf. The fly had become stuck on one of the glue like droplets, but as it struggled to get away it touched more drops until escape became impossible. Eventually, as the insect slowly died, the leaf folded over until most of the droplets were in grim contact with the victim. Then, unbelievably, the plant began to slowly digest the insect, absorbing the nutrients into its own system.
Bigger fry
I got up to stretch my aching joints and take a look at the pictures I’d already taken. A great feature of digital photography is that it gives one the chance to immediately review the pictures you take and make adjustments to do better. I tried a new setting to get a deeper field of focus.
With the adjustments made, I hunkered down and slogged along again looking for bigger prey. I crawled on my belly rather like soldiers do when training to keep low under fire by crawling under rows of low slung barbed wire. Of course I didn’t have to fear live bullets whizzing overhead, but I was indeed besieged by live ammunition in the form of mosquitoes, blackflies and deerflies. A stabbing pain on occasion would indicate I had taken a direct hit.
The occasional brush of large wings on my back assured me that I was being protected somewhat by an aerial ally, the dragonflies. They were scooping up some of my tormentors and eating them.
It was with some sadness, therefore, that I spied a dragonfly sitting motionless between two sundew plants. A gentle tap to its head proved it was dead, and a closer look showed that one wing was hopelessly trapped in the clutches of a sundew leaf.
The saddest part of the whole deal was that the plant only had a grip on a wing. It therefore got little nourishment from its giant capture. But that is the way of nature. Death might not always be convenient, but in the end everything is recycled in one way or another.
I have often seen other dragonflies that met a similar fate but were indeed digested by the sundew plants.
A little farther along, I saw a more delicate relative of the dragonfly, a damselfly, in the grip of a couple sundew leaves. It was still struggling to free itself but it was clear that it was doomed.
Even if I had wanted to free it, I knew from past experience that I would probably damage its fragile wings and doom it anyway, so I let nature take its course.
Carnivorous relatives
Sundews aren’t the only carnivorous plants in the state. I visited a northern bog last year where I found a very different sort of meat eater, the pitcher plant, living alongside the sundews. These were much larger than sundews and the leaves were welded in an ingenious fashion to create a watertight, living vase.
Inside the container, a clear watery liquid traps any insects that fall within and then slowly digests them. Downturned spikes on the inside of the pitcher prevent most insects from climbing out.
Upon examination, the plant usually has a collection of trapped insects slowly stewing in the broth. Like the sundews, the pitcher plant receives protein nourishment from the trapped victims.
Just how vital this extra nutrition is to each plant is hard to judge, since many sundew plants seem to sit around without any bugs blundering into their grasp.
I usually have to hunt pretty hard to find any victims. Probably over the summer a lot more of them eventually get fed, but to find out would take a lot more crawling around in the mud and heat than I would want to do.
Just knowing that we have some plants that have turned the tables on the insect world is good enough for me. The world of nature is so full of twists and turns, that there are surprises around every corner. Once you think you know what to expect, something will take you by surprise.
Whaditiz
They were recently metamorphosed American toads.
Contact Jim Solberg at
nitefrogger@charter.net or (608) 782-2560.
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