The genus Drosera includes nearly 250 known species that all have something extraordinary in common: these plants eat flesh. Maria Jacson provides a vivid description of the process: “When an insect settles upon its leaves, it has been observed to bend them upward, and, by pointing all their globules of mucus to the center, completely to have entangled the depredator” (1811). Although Drosera is native to England and, in fact, to every continent except Antarctica, its ability to ensnare insects was not observed and recorded until 1780. Around this time, however, several scientists reported similar findings.

In England, this task falls to the surgeon, Mr. Whately (Darwin spells it “Wheatly”), who sends his report to William Withering, one of England’s most popular botanists. Withering includes the account in the second edition of his bestselling book An Arrangement of British British Plants (1787). According to Withering, Mr. Whately observed that inside of every curled leaf of the Drosera lays an insect. Whately conducts experiments on the leaves, pressing a pin to them to demonstrate their irritability, a favorite property of eighteenth-century science brought to prominence by Albrecht von Haller. In this case, irritability signifies the ability to contract in reaction to a stimulus. That this plant exhibits this ability is significant because many naturalists of the century denied it to the entirety of the vegetable world. Upon receiving Whately’s account and recognizing its significance immediately, Withering attempts to replicate the findings, but to no avail. Remarkably, however, he gives Whately the benefit of doubt, likely made easier by the fact that Whately’s colleague, Gardom, corroborates the findings, which Withering prints in his book. Gardom describes the carnivorous sundew as follows: “On Mr. Whately’s centrically pressing with a pin other leaves, yet in their natural and expanded form, we observed a remarkable sudden and elastic spring of the leaves, so as to become inverted upwards, and as it were encircling the pin, which evidently showed the method by which the fly came into its embarrassing situation” (p. 333).

Withering also calls attention to the work of the eminent German botanist, Albrecht Wilhelm Roth, whose contributions to the science of botany are consistently underestimated. In his Beiträge zur Botanik (1782), Roth devotes an entire chapter to the Drosera as the ideal experimental subject for the investigation of the irritability of leaves. Roth, like Whately, notices a dead insect in each of the closed leaves: “With this I came to the thought, whether this plant, which seemed to have some similarity with the Dionaea Muscipula, did not also possess a similar irritable property as the Dionaea? This discovery was quite pleasing to me, since no observations on the irritability of the leaves of these plants were yet known” (pp. 65—6). Roth goes on to conduct experiments to determine the nature of this irritability and draw conclusions about the Drosera.

In his discussion of Drosera, Roth mentions another plant, well known for its irritability, that is, Dionaea muscipula or the Venus flytrap. Nearly every discussion of the sundew includes at least some reference to the flytrap, since both plants had the remarkable ability of capturing insects. Capturing insects, however, does not mean eating insects. While I entitled this section, “Plants That Eat Flesh,” the plant’s carnivorous nature was by no means a foregone conclusion. In Darwin’s description, for instance, he explains the Drosera’s actions as a system of defense against insects, making no mention of the possible nutrients gained from digesting them. Roth also acknowledges this possibility, but thinks that the matter cannot yet be decided one way or another. One author in favor of the carnivorous hypothesis is John Ellis, who was the first naturalist to publish on the Venus flytrap’s irritable properties in 1769. He describes the plant as possessing a machine to catch food in its leaves. His short piece is written as an open letter to Linnæus, beginning with the clever line, “I know that every discovery in nature is a treat to you; but in this you will have a feast” (p. 37).

Ellis’ss letter has another significance. Although it may introduce “a newly-discovered sensitive plant,” the letter serves as an appendix to his main work: Directions for bringing over seeds and plants, from the East-Indies and other distant countries, in a state of vegetation: together with a catalogue of such foreign plants as are worthy of being encouraged in our American colonies, for the purposes of medicine, agriculture, and commerce. The title, though long by today’s standards was common in the eighteenth century, conveys the place of Dionaea muscipula in the colonial history of Britain. Ellis’s concerns are many, but he is mainly interested in how the seeds obtained in the East (and elsewhere) can be safely returned to Britain in a fertile state. To this end, he describes a bevy of hardware (that is, different kinds of cases complete with diagrams), the pros and cons of several techniques, and a host of tips gained from experience to ensure that the vast effort and time spent in acquiring and transporting seeds would not amount to nil. His work is as much about importing new species from afar as it is growing British species abroad; that is, the transportation of plants is always a two-way street. It was, after all, the invention of the Wardian case in the nineteenth century that would allow the tea plant’s introduction to India and Cinchona’s introduction to Kew Gardens in England from South America and afterwards to India.

Fascination with carnivorous plants continues today, with entire botanical societies devoted to these plants. This fascination is one unlikely to abate, and for good reason. In a recent article, “The Venus Flytrap Dionaea muscipula Counts Prey-Induced Action Potentials to Induce Sodium Uptake,” Jennifer Böhm et al. argue that a moving object must trip the mechanosensors twice before the trap will first shut, another two times in order for the plant to release jasmonic acid, and three additional times for the release of prey-degrading hydrolases. The latter two processes aid in the digestion of the prey. It is thought that so many triggers are required at each stage, so that the plant does not waste energy on stimuli that are not nutritious. In other words, the Venus flytrap counts the struggles of its prey, ensuring that its meal is, in fact, truly flesh.