Look closely, but be wary of touching. Those beautiful glistening drops of dew at the end of the plants you can see in these photographs are not quite what they seem. In fact, rather than being dew, that jewel of the earth, these gleaming globules are in fact mucilage.
Mucilage is a thick, extremely sticky matter which is produced by most of the plants on the planet. It helps the plant to store water and germinate its seeds and is even used as a kind of emergency food store in some plants. The Drosera, however, has a much darker reason for producing mucilage.
0 comment(s):
Post a Comment