The Well-trodden Path

The amazing thing about the well-trodden path is that no matter how many times one follows it there is always something new to discover.

At the cottage this summer, I was reminiscing with my brother about a recent fishing trip. We had traveled to Gander, Newfoundland and then flown by float plane from there to a lodge on Banting Lake.

Banting Lake is named in tribute to Sir Frederick Banting. It was there in 1941 that he perished in a plane crash. He is known as the Nobel Prize winning discoverer of Insulin.

As remarkable as this discovery was, Frederick Banting went on to do something even more remarkable still. He did not seek to profit from this life saving discovery. Instead of applying for a patent, he transferred his rights to the University of Toronto. The price? One dollar. This act of selfless nobility is what made it possible for the millions suffering from diabetes to have affordable access to his health restoring serum.

Back from my digression. I was talking about the well-trodden path. The guides at Banting Lake Lodge were perfect specimens of the amazingly capable and resourceful men life in Newfoundland demands.

While trudging along a barely discernible path, an act of gritty endurance on my part but what my guide described as,

”a quick skip up the river”

I pointed out to him a dense patch of Round Leaf Sundew.

The Round Leaf Sundew is a tiny plant that grows in the nutrient starved barrens throughout the Maritimes.

It only grows 3 or 4 centimeters tall and has several round leaves of a soft green colour, each covered with many bright red hairs.

Every hair is tipped with the tiniest drop of sweet, sticky liquid.

An insect unfortunate enough to try for a sip of this deadly nectar finds itself trapped and slowly digested by the enzyme rich liquid as the hairs slowly enwrap its body.

My guide stopped to look at the miniature plantation. He pretended interest in deference to my need to take a breather.

When I pointed out the remains of a small insect wrapped in the hairs of one leaf, his interest was suddenly real. Captured by a plant that eats bugs.

Even though he knew the woods and waters of this country as well as or better than most, he was seeing something new and enjoying it as much as I was to be learning the broader strokes of the landscape unfolding before me.

And that is the amazing thing about the well-trodden path.

The Carnivorous Plants of Nova Scotia

In honour of Halloween, I’m going to tell you about a fascinating part of the natural history of Nova Scotia. We have several varieties of meat-eating plants!

Technically they are insectivorous – they eat bugs but still, think about it. Plants that capture and digest insects are surprisingly common here.

We have a plant called the pitcher plant, three types of Sundew, a killer called the Butterwort and lots of Bladderworts.

The plants hunt in different ways from passive traps to actively luring the victim with the promise of sweets then slamming a door shut behind them.

The pitcher plant looks like a vase with water in it. When an insect falls in, the downward facing hairs lining the pitcher keep the prey from climbing back out.

The liquid in the base of the vase is an enzyme rich soup that breaks the insect down so that its nutrients can be absorbed by the plant.

Slightly more aggressive is the Sundew.

It hunts by using sticky hairs to trap the bug and then gradually folds more of the sticky hairs and its leaves around the victim, trapping and slowly digesting it.

We have three of these hunters here, the Round Leaved, the Narrow Leaved and a very rare Sundew called the Thread Leaved Sundew, which is endangered now but there are still a few in boggy places around Shelburne.

 It’s a tiny plant big ones are only about 10 centimeters tall.

The Butterwort hunts by using a sticky coating on its leaves. It is just like fly paper. An insect lands on it and is unable to escape before the slow enfolding of the leaves traps it.

The name of this plant comes from the Old English word for plant, “wort”. The butter part of the name may refer to the sticky goo on its leaves.

The champion and most active hunter in the group is the Bladderwort.

This is a common submergent plant seen in boggy ponds. There are a lot of varieties.

It has a series of bladder-like structures along its stems. These bladders are really traps. They are hollow with a tiny door at one end surrounded by hairs.

The trap secretes a sweet liquid that acts as bait. When an unsuspecting victim approaches the plant and stimulates the trigger hairs surrounding the bladders- snap!

The door flies open and the insect is sucked inside to be slowly digested.

The thing these plants have in common is that they have all evolved to live in the acidic, low-nutrient bogs and swamps of Nova Scotia. What they can’t get from the water and soil they get by hunting.

To me, that's amazing.