DARWIN, Charles.
Insectivorous Plants.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875.
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+$500
First Edition of Charles Darwin’s Insectivorous Plants
First American edition of this important work by the famed naturalist on carnivorous plants. Octavo, original brick-red cloth stamped in black and gilt with gilt titles to the spine, yellow endpapers, illustrated. In very good condition with rubbing and wear to the extremities and joints and toning to the pages.
Darwin states in the opening pages to this comprehensive account: “During the summer of 1860, I was surprised by finding how large a number of insects were caught by the leaves of the common sun-dew (Drosera rotundifolia) on a heath in Sussex. I had heard that insects were thus caught, but knew nothing further on the subject.” The book chronicles Darwin’s experiments with various carnivorous plants, in which he carefully studied their feeding mechanisms. Darwin tried several methods to stimulate the plants into activating their trap mechanisms, including feeding them meat and glass, blowing on them and prodding them with hair. He found that only the movement of an animal would cause the plants to react, and concluded that this was an evolutionary adaptation to conserve energy for prey and to ignore stimuli that were not likely to be nutritious. He also discovered that while some plants have distinct trap-like structures, others produce sticky fluids to ensnare their prey and concluded that this was an example of natural selection pressure resulting in various methods for food capture.
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