Strange Facts About the Sundew
In movies, plants that eat meat are usually depicted as being ferocious monsters. However, the sundew is not your average carnivore – it might seem like a tiny insectivore at first glance! In reality, this plant has been observed trapping unsuspecting bugs in its sticky leaves or gutting them for food before digesting their remains over time…
The strange facts about Sundews will astound you: they attract their prey then capture them using unusual ,some might say unnatural, methods.
What a gratifying snare for a wild little plant? It’s a barbed carnivorous plant that grows well in terrariums in the home and wet, swampy areas (bogs) around the world. Sundews are approximately 152 predatory plant species of the genus Drosera family Droseraceae. They are found in marshes and fens with sandy, acidic soil and well distributed in tropical and temperate regions mostly in Australia.
Despite dainty and sweet looks, it’s a murderer in disguise and predominantly perennials (can live for two or more years.
Sundew carnivorous plant features small, nodding, five-petaled white or pinkish flowers. Moreover, the flowers have on one side a curving stem-like 4 to 10 inches above the basal leaves. Also, it has less than 2.5 cm of the leaves with a typical arrangement in a rosette.
This carnivorous plant is bright green, and the head has manifold stalks that are either green or red. Each trunk has a sticky droplet of paste at the tip. The droplets look like dew and glisten in the sunlight, hence its name sundew.
Ok, let’s dive in strange facts about sundews.
Interesting Facts About Sundews
Gulping Down the Prey
Well, let’s see how a soft plant can eat a meal with an exoskeleton. Sounds weird! Right!
Once the prey holds on the sundews grips, the leaves curl over it to the firm. The leaves then emit digestive enzymes to begin the process. Not until the exoskeleton remains, the leaves won’t open. After that, they do the exoskeleton drops and await the next meal.
It is how these plants survive poor nutrient bogs by acquiring supportive nutrients from their insect diets. The more insects consumed the more flowers and seeds produced.
It could be easy to trap and kill an insect, but it can take it a few weeks to digest it. Sundew’s deadly emissions are innocuous to the assassin bug which conceals on the plant to take advantage of helpless prey.
Sundews Apprehending Insects
After insects, mostly mosquitoes (they are abundant in the sundew’s preferred habitats) lay into the snares. The plants then curl their edges around the prey. It bends just enough to contiguity the victim with more of the hair stalks on its surface. That’s how small flying or crawling insects find themselves doomed. The ones who thought of a tasty meal of nectar are now dinner on the other hand.
How Sundews Entices Insects
The sundews plants make a sticky and sweet appendage that coats the minuscule hairs covering the leaves. The dew that glistens in sunlight attracts insects who thinking have got tasty sweet nectar on seeing them.
Sundews also release sweet fragrance to entice insects to come to it.
Thigmonasty
It is the retaliation of a plant to touch or vibration. Sundews feel the prey when caught on their stick dew. Their thigmonasty is to stifle the victim until it dies from exhaustion. The response varies from one species to another. The cape sundews look very considerable and full of flair, but it takes for it 30 minutes to completely inundate their prey. Drosera Glanduligera and Drosera Burmannii have bust tentacles that wrap their food within seconds.
Medicinal uses of Sundews
Sundew’s historical use has remained effectual even in modern days. Herbalists advise tea made from the dried plant of sundew for coughs and bronchitis as the plant’s leaves have antimicrobial properties in them.
Sundews have roused medical research. The gummed substance secreted by these plants is a type mucilaginous that fuses with live and growing mammal cells. While fetching sundew’s sticky dew isn’t feasible, researchers could copy its properties to create a phony gel. This gel promotes wound healing and promise in the field of tissue regeneration.
Reproduction facts about Sundews
Many types of sundews undergo reproduction because their flowers often pollinate each other upon closing. In some other sundews, stolons are produced naturally to vegetative propagation occurs when roots reach closer to the soil.
Sundew Habitat
Sundew typically grows in seasonally and in continually wet places. Also, the soil should have the acidic content and high levels of sun. They are common in swamps, marshes, fens, bogs, and moist stream banks in the ecosystem of coastal south-east Queensland of coastal Australia. It further extends to north-eastern New South Wales, a table-topped mountain of Venezuela and fynbos of South Africa.
We also have written a Tropical Sundew Care Guide recently within our library of articles if you may want to learn more about Sundews.
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As an Adorn Plant
The utter beauty of sundew shining traps and the attractiveness of its predatory nature have made this species adorable to many as adorn plants. However, cultivating these plants at home is a challenging task, and therefore, much effort is needed.
Color
The amount of sunlight they receive determines the intensity. When sunshine is abundant, leaves turn a bright red and when it is not leaves are green, and some are a greenish-red.
Sundews as Ink
Early settlers drew out a red fluid from sundews to use as ink.
Sundew Size
Sundew size depends on a particular variety. Some are short-lived like an inch in diameter while others can reach 8 inches height. Flowers develop on tall, slender stalks, and they open for a few hours in the early morning.
Sundew Facts Relating to Domestic Cultivation
It’s not easy to plant these plants at home; therefore, it needs sufficient knowledge and effort. Check out some requirements;
- Pots: Use glazed tiles or plastic as they are best for their roots that can grow as deep a four to six inches.
- Substrate: Mixing long-fibered sphagnum or peat moss and silica sand is the best substrate because it contains low nitrogen. Higher nitrogen contains low nitrogen. Higher nitrogen content in soil is life-threatening to sundews.
- Lighting: Furnish fluorescent lights for the healthy growth of your sundew plants.
- Food: Proper food is indispensable subordinate in the fast development of your sundew plants. Feed them with food pellets or insects like flightless fruit flies and bloodworms (freeze-dried).
