Dark secrets of carnivorous plants

It was a regular trip because the specimens I collected always died, so I had to go off in search of replacements. Now, of course, I know why they died - there was no way plants whose specialised habitat was moorland bogs could survive in a saucer in my back yard, no matter how much water I provided.

As an adult, I know better than to uproot wild plants in the hope they will survive in a garden and, of course, they are now protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.

With one or two exceptions, that makes it an offence to uproot any wild plant, although the mere picking of some wild flowers is not illegal. Those are the most common ones - lots of rarer plants are totally protected.

I considered my plants to be rather special and definitely unusual because they consumed insects. I wanted to find out how they did so, hence my juvenile plundering of the moorland, an act which was not then illegal.

One of them was the sundew and the other the butterwort, both of which favour damp or marshy areas of open moorland, usually with plenty of spongy water-logged sphagnum moss around them.

Both can be found on our moors and both are in flower around this time of year - both are extremely beautiful too, although in times past each provided something of a puzzle to our forebears.

The sundew was considered magical because its rounded pale-green leaves were covered with short red hairs, which in turn were tipped with droplets of moisture.

This was thought to be dew, hence the flower's name, but the puzzle arose when those droplets did not evaporate in the sun. Dew on other plants always evaporated in the heat of the day, so our ancestors reckoned the sundew must be magical.

Not surprisingly, they collected the moisture and used it in their primitive medicines. It was thought to burn off warts, prevent sunburn and even promote desire in female cattle, a useful factor in their reproduction.

It was also thought to maintain youthfulness in humans and, in some areas, a liqueur was made by mixing this juice with a variety of herbs and spices.

It was some considerable time before botanists and herbalists realised the purpose of the droplets was to trap small flies, which were then consumed by the plant.

Midges are attracted to sundew leaves because they mistakenly believe the substance is water in which they can lay their eggs.

Once they settle on the leaf, however, they are firmly held by the sticky fluid and then the edges of the leaf curl inwards to enfold them. The hairs then secrete another fluid which turns the softer parts of the insect's body into fluid, which is then absorbed by the plant.

After a few days, the leaf unfurls to discard the tougher remains of the midge. More droplets are formed and the scene is set for another midge to be trapped.

The plant behaves in this way because its moorland home does not provide the necessary nutrients for its survival, so it obtains them from insects.

Figures show that a single sundew can trap up to 2,000 flies in the course of a single summer.

Each plant can comprise up to 20 leaves in the form of flat rosettes and, during the summer, it produces an attractive, tall flower bearing several blooms with white petals.

The butterwort is a star-shaped plant with long, pointed leaves which are a yellowish-green colour. Its flowers - on tall, single, leafless stems - are a beautiful pinkish-purple, rather like violets, hence its alternative names of bog violet or marsh violet, but it is the leaves which are so unusual.

Their colour is rather like butter and it is not surprising that our forebears thought they were beneficial to dairy cows.

Not only was it thought that cows which ate butterwort produced a better supply of milk, the plant was also thought to protect the animals from witchcraft.

In some cases, cows' udders were rubbed with butterwort leaves and it was also thought the plant prevented milk from curdling, although other writers suggest it was actually used to make the milk curdle during butter-making.

If it was beneficial to cows, butter and milk, however, it was also considered useful to humans, protecting them against the unwelcome attentions of elves and making butter produced from cows' milk ideal for a new baby.

The plant is bad news for flies, however. When they settle on the open leaf, a sticky substance detains them and, as they struggle for freedom, this triggers off a mechanism which causes the edges of the leaf to curl over and trap the insect.

The plant then digests the unfortunate insect, thus obtaining necessary nutrients which are not available through its roots.

In time, the leaf re-opens to allow the fly's undigested remains to be rinsed away by the rain or perhaps blown away by the breeze.

My mail bag this week contains a letter from a woman living in Guisborough. She refers to my notes about the Ice Saints (D&S, May 9), in which I listed four days in May which are often rather more chilly than normal.

Those days are May 11 to May 14, each being a saint's day. And this year those days were certainly cooler and a good deal wetter!

My correspondent mentions Buchan's Law. This was a theory developed by Alexander Buchan (1829-1907), a Scottish meteorologist, who observed that, during certain periods of the year, colder spells of weather could be expected.

His observations, calculated over a long period, suggested these cold spells arrived every year at roughly the same time, generally with little more than a few days difference.

One of them broadly coincides with the Ice Saints Days, being May 9-11, and the others are February 7-10, April 11-14, June 29-July 4, August 6-11 and November 6-12.

In addition to his cold spells, however, Buchan also noticed that two warm spells occurred at roughly the same time throughout the years.

These comprised temperatures which were hotter than normal for the time and he claimed these were the days around July 12-15 and again from August 12-15.

I know of no detailed analysis of Buchan's claims, but many country people believe his suggestions are surprisingly accurate, bearing in mind the continuing uncertainties of our climate.

Buchan made no claims that he was forecasting the weather for those periods - his observations were based on averages throughout several years of study.

He was secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society and built an observatory on Ben Nevis from which to carry out his work.

Sunday is the feast day of St Vitus. I can well recall people suffering from a nervous ailment which was known as St Vitus's Dance and this saint will be forever associated with this illness, which is correctly known as chorea.

This is a nervous disorder in which the sufferer endures spasmodic movements of the limbs and facial muscles, coupled with a general lack of co-ordination.

So far as I know, St Vitus himself did not suffer from this disease. It seems that his association with it began in Germany during the seventeenth century.

People who wished to ensure their good health throughout the year would flock to a statue of St Vitus on his feast day, June 15, and dance before it. In some cases, the dancing became frantic and excessive and so it became confused with chorea. In time, chorea became known as St Vitus's Dance, and he was invoked against it.

In fact, he is the patron saint of dancers, actors, mummers, dogs, domestic animals and coppersmiths. In addition to being invoked against chorea, his protection is also sought by epileptics and those suffering from sleeplessness and likely snake bites!

St Vitus, who is also known as St Guy or St Guido, was a young Sicilian nobleman who lived in the fourth century. He was secretly converted to Catholicism by his nurse, but his father was so angry that he ordered his son be scourged and placed in prison.

Despite a miracle in the cells, his father continued his persecution. Eventually Vitus gained his freedom and fled to Italy with his tutor, Modestus. But they were caught, denounced as Christians and martyred by being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil.

We also remember St Vitus because it is said that if it rains on his feast day, it will rain for another 40 days