Unusual Plants

孫師明

各種不同的植物為我們的生活增添了美麗和色彩，它們都以自己獨特的方式生存著，并且有的植物不但外形奇特，而且還有著某種靈性。

This is the Venus Fly-Trap. It has two special petals， and each petal has several hairs in the middle. If an insect （昆蟲） touches one of these， the petals start to shut together. The insect often tries to run away. But the plant moves quicker than the insect. The victim（犧牲品） is trapped in a little prison. Soon it dies， and the plant gradually absorbs it.

Plants live the longest of all things on Earth. A Bristle Cone Pine in California is 4，700 years old， and is still alive—older than any written history.

Plants can be as small as one cell， like the millions of tiny plants in the sea. One of the smallest is the lichen plant， which grows on stones. It is probably the plant which grows the most slowly. It can take a hundred years to grow a few centimeters （厘米）.

But plants can also be as big as the Giant Redwood， the world's most massive（巨大的） living thing. One tree in California is 84m high and probably over two thousand tons in weight. No other type of tree grows higher than the Giant Redwood.

The Dead Horse Arum attracts flies by looking and smelling like dead meat. Once they get inside the plant， it shuts a door， and keeps them prisoner for a night. During the night， it drops pollen （花粉） on them. It releases them the next morning， covered in pollen， so that they can go and carry the pollen to another Arum.

One type of acacia tree in South America encourages ants to live in it. The tree provides the ants with a home （in special branches） and with food （little pieces of protein at the end of some leaves）. In return， the ants defend their tree as fiercely （猛烈地） as they can. They attack any other insect or animal which comes near， and even remove other plants growing near it.

Read the passage quickly and find the names of plants which match the descriptions on the left in the table below.