Word: plante
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Some time ago plant scientists at Texas' Agricultural and Mechanical College started trying to develop a cotton plant whose bolls would contain plenty of seeds but little or no fibre. Last week they announced that, by patient crossbreeding of natural "mutants" or freaks, they had succeeded. They even had photographs of the process (see cuts...
...seeds, having no lint to hold them, fall out and are lost. Texas A. & M.'s next step, therefore, is to keep the bolls from opening by further crossbreeding. Since nonopening types of cotton already exist, the scientists believe they can soon turn the trick. Such a plant should be in great demand among smart cotton planters because: 1) instead of having to be ginned, it could be cheaply threshed and harvested like any small grain; 2) there would be no cotton fibre to swell the two-year glut already on hand...
...only trouble with Sunday supplement folk tales about deadly trees and monstrous flowers which trap, devour and digest human beings is that they are as untrue as they sound. But it is true that the plant kingdom takes a mild, sporadic revenge on the plant-eating animal kingdom by arranging for certain plants to trap, devour and digest insects, worms, larvae, tiny fish, Crustacea-even birds, mice, frogs. Last week Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History published a booklet, Carnivorous Plants, by Botanist Sophia Prior, describing these plants and their predatory procedures...
...plant called Venus' fly trap, a native of North Carolina, was called by the great Charles Darwin "one of the most wonderful in the world." It has a two-lobed leaf which, while waiting for prey, stands open like a gaping clam shell. From the edges of the leaf two rows of slender spikes project inward like teeth. Two or three sensitive hairs serve as a trigger mechanism. When an insect touches these, the lobes snap together, the spikes meshing to prevent escape. Then the leaf, says Miss Prior, "is converted into a virtual stomach and the glands...
...common butterwort is one of several plants which exude a sticky substance so that the leaves act like flypaper. "Pitcher plants" grow leaves that collect and hold water in which insects, birds and mice, attracted by toothsome exudates, fragrant smells or bright colors, are drowned. The bladderwort is an underwater plant whose bladders are equipped with elastic, one-way valves. Once a small crustacean or fish has ventured in, he cannot...