Plants

Facts about meat-eater plants

a) Plants that trap insects for food are called meat –eaters or carnivorous plants. They live in places where they cannot get enough nitrogen from the soil and so the insects provide the nitrogen.

b) There are 550 species of carnivorous plants. Some common carnivorous plants are butterwort, sundew, Venus fly trap and pitcher plant-living in places from the high peaks of New Zealand to the swamps of California.

c) The butterwort gets its name because its leaves ooze drops that make them glisten like butte. These drops contain the plant’s digestive juices.

d) The sundew can tell the difference between flesh and other substances and only reacts too flash.

e) The sundew’s leaves are covered in tentacles that ooze a sticky substance called mucilage.

f) The sundew wraps up its tentacles and suffocates them in smile in less than ten seconds.

g) A Venus fly-trap’s trap will only shut if touched at least twice in 20 seconds.

h) Insects are lured on to many carnivorous plants by sweet-tasting nectar – or the smell of rotting meat.

i) The juice of a pitcher plant will dissolve a chunk of steak into nothing in few days.

j) The bladders of bladder works were once thought to be air sacs to keep the plant afloat. In fact, they are tiny traps for water insects.

Like the Venus fly –trap, Sarrancenia is also a carnivorous plant. But instead of actively capturing its prey, it provides a deep tube for them to fall into. Insects drawn to the nectar are unable to climb up.