Hungry Plants

Henry Plans

《亨利的计划》

Chapter 1. Gotcha. Everything is quiet in the bog, or almost everything. A tiny black fly buzzed around looking for food. All of a sudden it smells nectar, a sugary juice that plants make. The sweet smell is coming from a strange plant growing flat against the ground.

第一章 上钩啦 沼泽里一切都静悄悄的，或者说几乎一切都静悄悄的。 一只小小的黑苍蝇嗡嗡飞着，到处找吃的。 它忽然闻到了花蜜的味道，那是植物分泌的一种甜甜的汁液。 这甜甜的气味来自一种平贴在地面生长的奇怪植物。

The fly lands near the plant and crawls towards the leaf. Closer, closer, closer.

苍蝇落在这株植物旁边，朝着叶片爬过去。 近一点，再近一点，越来越近了。

Snap! The leaf slams shut, squishing the fly between two green walls. The fly tries to get out, but can't. The fly will never escape. This plant will eat it alive. How can a plant eat a fly? It is easy for the Venus fly trap. The Venus fly trap is just one of more than 600 kinds of plants that eat insects and other tiny animals. These plants are called carnivorous. This word means meat -eating. Carnivorous plants are the Tyrannosaurus rexes of the plant world.

咔嚓！叶片猛地合上，把苍蝇挤在了两片绿色的“墙”中间。 苍蝇想逃，却逃不出去。它永远也逃不掉了，这株植物会把它活活吃掉。 植物怎么能吃苍蝇呢？ 对捕蝇草来说这可太简单了。 全世界有600多种以昆虫和其他小动物为食的植物，捕蝇草只是其中一种。 这些植物叫做食虫植物，这个词的意思就是“吃肉的”。 食虫植物就是植物界的霸王龙呀。

Eating bugs might seem like a strange thing for a plant to do. And it is. Most plants get everything they need to be healthy from sun, rain, and soil. But insect -eating plants grow in very poor soil. They make up for this by eating bugs. For these plants, eating bugs is like taking a vitamin pill. Scientists say that insect -eating plants are very old. The first one appeared about 65 million years ago, around the time of the dinosaurs and long before there were any people on Earth. We know about these old plants because just as there are dinosaur fossils, there are also plant fossils.

对植物来说，吃虫子好像是件挺奇怪的事。 确实很奇怪。 大多数植物都能从阳光、雨水和土壤里获得生长所需的全部养分。 但食虫植物生长的土壤非常贫瘠。 它们就靠吃虫子来补充缺失的养分。 对这些植物来说，吃虫子就像吃维生素片一样。 科学家说食虫植物的历史非常悠久。 最早的食虫植物出现在大约6500万年前，差不多和恐龙同时代，比人类出现在地球上的时间早得多。 我们能了解这些古老的植物，是因为和恐龙有化石一样，植物也有化石。