Three Curious Plants
Tbree of the most dangerous of vegetativo plants in the world are the cannibal tree of Australia, the death or grapple plant of South África and the vegetable python of New Zealand. The cannibal tree grows up in tbe shape of a huge pineapple and attains a height of 11 feet. It bas a series of broad, boardlike leaves growing in a fringe at the apex, wbich forcibly bring to ruind a gigantic Central American agave, and these boardlike leaves, from 10 to 12 feet in the smaller specimens and from 15 to 20 feet in the larger, hang to the ground and are easily strong enough to bear the weight of a man of 140 pounds or more. In the ancient times this tree was worshiped by the native savages under the name of the devil tree, a part of the interesting ceremony being the sacrifice of one of their number to its all too ready embrace. The victim to be sacrificed '.vas driven up the leaves of the tree to the apex, and the instant the so callea pistils of the monster were toncbed the leaves would fly together like a trap, crusbing the life out of the intruder. In this way the tree would liold its victim until every partiële of flesh would disappear from his bones. The grapple plant is a prostrate herb growing in South África. lts flowera are purple and shaped like the English foxglove. lts fruit has formidable hooks which, by clinging to any passerby, is conveyed to situations where its seed mayfind suitable oonditionsfor growth. Sir John Lubbock says it has been known to kill lions. The vegetable python, which is known to the naturalist as the clusia or fig, is the strangler of trees. The seeds of the clusia, being provided with a pulp and vcry pleasant to the tropical birds which feed thereon, are carried from tree to tree and deposited on the branches. Here germination begins. The leafy stem slowly rises, while the roots flow, as it were, down the truuk until tbesoilisreacbed. Here and there they branch, changing their course according to tbe directiou of auy obstrnctions met with. Meanwhilc from tbese rootlets leafy branches have been de■veloped, which, pnshiug themselves through the canopy above, get into the light and enormonsly accelerate tbeir growth. Now a metamorphosis takes place, for the hitherto soft aerial roots begin to harden and spread ■wider and wider, throwing out side branches, ■which flow into and amalgámate with each other until the whole tree trnnk is bound in a series of irregular living hoops. From this time on it is a struggle of life and death between the forest giant and the entwining clusia. Like an athlete the tree tries to expand and burst its fetters, causiug the bark to bulge between every interlacing, but success and freedom are not for the captive tree, for the monster clusia has made its bands very numerous and vide. Not allowed expansión, the tree soon withers and dies, and the strangler is soon expanded into a great bush, almost as large as the mass of branches and foliage it has efiaced. It is truly a tragedy in the
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Old News
Ann Arbor Courier