# Elvish fire



## TimV (Dec 14, 2008)

Elven fire has long been a part of European folk lore. Tolkien uses the theme in the Hobbit when Elves use fire to draw a band of Dwarfs into a forest where they became ensnared.

I think Tolkien would have laughed if he were alive to learn of the discovery of _Drosera hartmeyertorum_, a plant which does exactly the same thing.

This plant is very difficult, and only lives for a few months before it spreads it's seeds and then dies in cool weather, so I make apology for the quality of my picture. I'll have to wait till next year to get more. They only grow in a very small area of Australia, and have to catch large amounts of food in a very short while, so they have a unique and bizzare advantage over other plants.

This species, _Drosera hartmeyerorum_ is fairly newly discovered, and there's not much out there on the web. Here's what mine looked like in full growth:






The yellow round growths on the leaves look yellow, as in the picture, but the surfaces of the growths are clear. Inside are a dozen convex botanical lenses with a yellow core. These giant biological lenses reflect back sunlight like those reflectors dividing highway lanes. Notice the red color of the rest of the plant. Red can't be seen by many insects, which is why traditionally hummingbird feeders have their syrup dyed red, so bees won't be attracted to them.

So, what the insect prey sees is very much like what you and I see when coming in to an airport at night, with runway lights pointing towards the landing strip. They are yellow for that reason. You've all heard the expression "as a moth to a flame" and these lights prove irresistible to those insects the plant specialises in eating. The "runways" lead to the parts of the plant that digest prey. 

To make it even more outlandish, the favorite prey of this plant is a kind of grasshopper in a certain immature stage. This grasshoppers like to rest at the same distance off the ground at the same height _D. hartmeyertorum_ first start producing these yellow nodules. When the strands of grass the grasshoppers rest on wave back and forth, they pass between the grasshopper's vision and _D. hartmeyertorum_, and to the insect it looks like the lights are flashing!

There are animals, like undersea fish that use light to capture prey, but to my knowledge this is the only example of a plant using light to capture prey. And they do it by collecting sunlight, changing it's color and intensifying it.

Here's a paper in German by it's discoverer for some close ups of the nodules
lDer Sonnentau mit Lichtreflektoren deutsch


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## Jon Lake (Dec 14, 2008)

Wow! Thank you for sharing that.


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## AThornquist (Dec 14, 2008)

Wow, that was very interesting! At first I thought you were going to share how those plants were causing bearded midgets to raid your garden


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## CalvinandHodges (Dec 14, 2008)

AThornquist said:


> Wow, that was very interesting! At first I thought you were going to share how those plants were causing bearded midgets to raid your garden



Very cool Tim!


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## Prufrock (Dec 14, 2008)

CalvinandHodges said:


> Very cool Tim!



 Indeed!


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## Theognome (Dec 14, 2008)

It's good to see newly discovered plants eating critters. 

Theognome


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## Richard King (Dec 14, 2008)

That is such a great testimony of the wonders of God's creation.

And so much better than what I expected 
...which was some sort of flame that Elvis used to heat up banana and peanut butter sandwiches.


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## Southern Presbyterian (Dec 14, 2008)

The PB Botanist strikes again. Your plant postings are always most interesting, Tim.


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