Page 65 - Photosynthesis: The Green Miracle

Harun Yahya

The sticky leaves of Drosera bear long and short hairs that contain a
red pigment. An insect that touches the short hairs in the middle of the
leaf springs a trap when this signal is transmitted to the long hairs. As if
it were the palm of a hand, the leaf folds over the insect, and then digests
it.
All plants move to a certain extent, but the movements of carnivo-

rous plants occur quickly and efficiently. Since plants lack muscular sys-
tems, carnivorous plants manage this by using two separate mechanisms.
The first sort of mechanism is seen in the Venus fly trap, which uses a
change in water pressure. This system is triggered when the hairs on its
leaves are touched: Cells on the inside wall transfer water to the external
cells. This forces the leaf to fold over in less than a minute. The second
kind of movement is supported by cell development.
The tendrils of the Sundew bend inwards towards the prey, because
the cells on the outside of the tendrils swell up more than those on the in-

ner. The insects are drawn to the tendrils by the scent emitted by substan-
ces secreted on the end of the tendrils and get trapped by a sticky “dewy”
substance there. When the trap goes into action, the longer tendrils on the
outside close like a cage over the shorter ones in the middle, trapping the
insect inside. The insect is then digested by means of various enzymes in-
side the “dew.”
What does it mean, for a plant to prepare a special trap to catch in-

sects for fertilizer? First of all, how does a plant sense the need to supply
itself with nitrogen by developing such an unfamiliar means of trapping
insects?
Evolutionists maintain that carnivorous plants acquired this charac-
teristic as the result of natural phenomena that took place by chance. But
what kind of chance event can endow a plant with hair-trigger leaves and
the enzymes it needs to digest an insect? Furthermore, every carnivorous
plant has entirely different characteristics appropriate to the habitat in
which it lives. Therefore, Drosera, for example would need to have

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