In the grasp of a killer

The sticky outreached blossom of a round-leaf sundew [Drúichtín Móna] might seem inviting to a passing fly but it’s not a mistake that a insect gets to make twice.

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council describes it thus

Sundews have spoon-shaped leaves which are covered with up to 200 pin-shaped red “tentacles” (or stalked glands) which respond to touch. The head of each gland is covered with a mucilaginous secretion which is acidic and enzymatic and does not evaporate. Insects may mistake the glistening leaves for nectar or may be caught because they blunder onto the leaves by chance.

Once a fly lands on, and gets stuck on, one of the leaves (which are each about 1cm wide) , the tentacles take a few minutes to curl around it. Digesting it can take a day.

As unappetising as dissolved insects might sound, the sundew plant was once used to brew an aphrodisiac drink called rosa solis - it was also used as a hair dye, so it was surely an ingredient that would put hair on your chest. According to Niall Mac Coitir’s wonderful “Irish Wild Plants – Myths, Legends and Folklore“, sundew boiled in asses’ milk was used to cure whooping cough (you’d need a stiff drink just to go out to milk the donkey in the first place).

A far more palatable-sounding drink is the Bronze Age brew that Galway-based archaeologists Declan Moore and Billy Quinn propose might have been brewed in Ireland. They describe the brew (and the theory behind it) here but the video is more fun. The good news, if you are in the capital,  is that they will be giving out more samples of it this week in UCD in Dublin at an archaelogical conference.

Camera = Canon EOS 5D, lens = Sigma 180mm macro, ISO=400, aperture=f20, speed = 1/80, Manfrotto tripod & pistol grip head.