Professor Jonkins Cannibal Plant

Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant by Howard R. Garis
Argosy Magazine, August 1905

After Professor Jeptha Jonkin had, by skillful grafting and care,
succeeded in raising a single tree that produced, at different seasons,
apples, oranges, pineapples, figs, cocoanuts, and peaches, it might have
been supposed he would rest from his scientific labors. But Professor
Jonkin was not that kind of a man.
He was continually striving to grow something new in the plant world.
So it was no surprise to Bradley Adams, when calling on his friend the
professor one afternoon, to find that scientist busy in his large
conservatory.
"What are you up to now?" asked Adams. "Trying to make a rosebush
produce violets, or a honeysuckle vine bring forth pumpkins?"
"Neither," replied Professor Jonkin a little stiffly, for he resented
Adams' playful tone. "Not that either of those things would be difficult.
But look at that."
He pointed to a small plant with bright, glossy green leaves mottled
with red spots. The thing was growing in a large earthen pot.
It bore three flowers, about the size of morning glories, and not unlike
that blossom in shape, save, near the top, there was a sort of lid, similar
to the flap observed on a jack-in-the-pulpit plant.
"Look down one of those flowers," went on the professor, and Adams,
wondering what was to come, did so.
He saw within a small tube, lined with fine, hair-like filaments, which
seemed to be in motion. And the shaft or tube went down to the bottom

of the morning-glory-shaped part of the flower. At the lower extremity
was a little clear liquid.
"Kind of a queer blossom. What is it?" asked Adams.
"That," said the professor with a note of pride in his voice, "is a
specimen of the Sarracenia Nepenthis."
"What's that? French for sunflower, or Latin for sweet pea?" asked
Adams irreverently.
"It is Latin for pitcher plant," responded the professor, drawing himself
up to his full height of five feet three. "One of the most interesting of
the South American flora."
"The name fits it pretty well," observed Adams. "I see there's water at
the bottom. I suppose this isn't the pitcher that went to the well too
often."
"The Sarracenia Nepenthis is a most wonderful plant," went on the
professor in his lecture voice, not heeding Adams' joking remarks. "It
belongs to what Darwin calls the carnivorous family of flowers, and
other varieties of the same species are the Dionaea Muscipula, or
Venus Fly-trap, the Darlingtonia, the Pinguicula and Aldrovandra, as
well as--"
"Hold on, professor," pleaded Adams. "I'll take the rest on faith. Tell
me about this pitcher plant, sounds interesting."
"It is interesting," said Professor Jonkin. "It eats insects."
"Eats insects?"
"Certainly. Watch."
The professor opened a small wire cage lying on a shelf and took from
it several flies. These he liberated close to the queer plant. The insects
buzzed about a few seconds, dazed with their sudden liberty. Then they
began slowly to circle in the vicinity of the strange flowers. Nearer and

nearer the blossoms they came, attracted by some subtle perfume, as
well as by a sweet syrup that was on the edge of the petals, put there by
nature for the very purpose of drawing hapless insects into the trap.
The flies settled down, some on the petals of all three blooms. Then a
curious thing happened.
The little hair-like filaments in the tube within the petals suddenly
reached out and wound themselves about the insects feeding on the
sweet stuff, which seemed to intoxicate them. In an instant the flies
were pulled to the top of the flower shaft by a contraction of the hairs,
and then they went tumbling down the tube into the miniature pond
below, where they were drowned after a brief struggle. Their crawling
back was prevented by spines growing with points down, as the wires
in some rat-traps are fastened. Meanwhile the cover of the plant closed
down.
"Why, it's a regular fly-trap, isn't it?" remarked Adams, much surprised.
"It is," replied the professor. "The plant lives off the insects it captures.
It absorbs them, digests them, and, when it is hungry again, catches
more."
"Where'd you get such an uncanny thing?" asked Adams, moving away
from the plant as if he feared it might take a sample bite out of him.
"A friend sent it to me from Brazil."
"But you're not going to keep it, I hope."
"I certainly am," rejoined Professor Jonkin.
"Maybe you're going to train it to come to the table and eat like a
human being," suggested Adams, with a laugh that nettled the
professor.
"I wouldn't have to train it much to induce it to be polite," snapped back
the owner of the pitcher plant.

And then, seeing that his