These fascinating carnivorous plants are plants that snare their prey while being completely stationary. They take nutrients from the sun and their prey. It makes food with the help of a green pigment called chlorophyll. In total, there are almost 320 thousand species that are Clade Viridiplantae(flowering plants) but only a select few are carnivorous.
Even though our earth has a lot of useful plants, there is one type that is quite dangerous. They are ‘carnivorous plants‘ that derive most of their nutrients from their prey. They are mainly called insectivorous plants that consume insects and small organisms.
Here’s another one of our articles about Carnivorous: Fantastic Carnivorous Plants and Where to Find Them
Furthermore, these plants primarily trap their prey using their attractive leaves and flowers. As a result, they lure the victim to sit on them to drink nectar from their beautiful flowers and leaves.
The existence of these plants steps back to the time of the formation of the earth. The oldest plant fossil the humans can lay their hands on was found in the Swampy Baltic coastline. It is 40 million years old.
Can you believe that there are around 580 various species of carnivorous plants that can thrive in a nitrogen deficient surrounding? Also, can imagine there could be different types of traps too? So without further ado here is The 10 Most Fascinating Carnivorous Plants.
The 10 most fascinating carnivorous plants:
1. Nepenthes Hamata
These plants use a mechanism called pitcher trap. They are most commonly available in Sulawesi, Indonesia. These plants, just like predators, appear very pleasant to their prey, and the insects get trapped when they try to drink nectar from them. The inner layers of these plants have a wax coating, which makes it impossible for the prey to stay firmly in place.
As a result, they fall into the pitcher chamber of this plant, causing them to release digestive enzymes. These digestive enzymes, work on them making it digestible for the Nepenthes Hamata plant. These monkey cup plants belong to Australia, India, Madagascar, and Seychelles, etc., where the land is above the sea level, in most of the cases. Additionally, you can very rarely find them in tropical climatic regions also. This fascinating plant produces nectar like fluid, which it uses to allure its prey. This fluid has a high capacity to drown the victim, and its ability to dissolve the insects is wonderfully high. It retains its dissolving property, even when someone adds liters of water to the fluid.
2. Roridula Gorgonias
This carnivorous plant is native to South Africa. Just like Nepenthes produces a nectar kind of fluid, this plant produces a glue-like substance to trap the prey. This mucilage substance doesn’t spare even if the prey’s hands are incredibly moist. To make the digestion process comfortable and relaxed, these Roridula plants help the symbiotic plants to grow.
In contrast, these plants grow beautiful pink flowers that have very serious adhesive on them. These plants prey on tiny insects and sometimes wasps also, even though a rare occurrence. These leaves have small hair at the end to trap their prey. These hairy plants are shrubs that grow to a maximum of 1 meter.
Unlike Nepenthes Hamata, these plants don’t secrete digestive enzymes that quickly dissolve the trapped prey. This plant allows a Pameridea roridula to grow in them. Also, this fantastic bug-like creature eats up the trapped insects and digests them gradually. This insect leaves crap in the plant leaf which can be sucked up by the plants. In this way, the plant gets some digested nitrogen and other nutrients without any digestive enzymes present in them. As the bug’s body has a grease coating, it doesn’t itself get stuck in the plant body.
3. Venus Flytrap
Native to North and South Carolina, this exotic plant of prey poses a dangerous threat to the life of insects by attracting and digesting them into the system. When an insect sits on these plants, the leaves close, thereby preventing them from escaping. Once the prey is trapped, the DSionaea’s body produces enzymes that help to dissolve the spider or small insects. The hair present in the leaves are so hard for the insects to escape the clutches.
Venus flytrap is seen only in North and South Carolina because these plants can thrive only in wet surroundings where humidity is more than 80%. The insects they prey upon provide most of the nutrients because the soil where they thrive is not at all fertile. If the plant traps a big insect, it takes 10 to 15 days for the plant to digest it, and reopen the closed leaves.
The digestive enzymes of these insects can’t digest the durable outer covering of the insects called exoskeletons. They spit it out when the leaves open after the digestion process is over. These plants don’t live a long life. They can open and close only six times in their life. After that, the leaves close forever. They can photosynthesize to provide sufficient nutrients to the plant.
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4. Utricularia Vulgaris
This amazing preying plant is found everywhere except for Antartica. That’s because they need water all around them. So, they grow widely in freshwater lakes, rivers, and soil where it is wet all the time. Unusual bladder-shaped traps found in them helps the plant to push the prey inside with a sudden gush of water inside them. The bladder exerts pressure from inside as well as outside, thereby pushing water into it, which contains the small fishes and water fleas.
Likewise, it is essential to know that the bladder can grow up to a great size, allowing space for gobbling up tiny fishes found in water. Humans cultivate greater Bladderwort for making tea from their leaves. Moreover, they are excellent medicine for bladder-related problems.
5. Darlingtonia California
These carnivorous plants exclusively survive in Oregon and Northern California. Darling California or Cobra Lily, is of the shape of a cobra and the fangs exactly make them look like a snake. The attractive fork-shaped leaf and beautiful appearance of these plants lure the preys to sit on them to find food for themselves.
Also, the upper part of this plant has nectar glands that attract insects to them. Ultimately, they are trapped inside the hood-shaped part of this plant which is immediately digested into the plant system.
6. Pinguicula
These are carnivorous plants that grow attractive lavender colored flowers in them. There are probably 80 varieties of Butterwort plant all over the world. These plants have two glands that help in prey trapping and digesting them. The first gland, known as Penduncular gland, produces a gluey substance that helps to trap the insects. They subsist on the upper surface of the plant in the form of dew. Immediately when the insect lands on the dew like enzyme, it is trapped as it can’t move its legs.
Even more, these plants can survive very harsh climatic conditions. That’s because around 12 species belonging to Butterwort family grow in very high altitudes. It is crucial to note that these species can conveniently prey and digest spiders, crickets, and even caterpillars.
However, you can grow them in homes for their beauty and use them to embellish dull looking rooms of your house. If you plan to plant them at home, don’t forget to use only distilled water.
7. Drosera Rotundifolia
Have you ever spotted any plant with round leaves? Such round-leaved plants mainly survive in Korea, North America, and Japan. The leaves of this plant have a sugary coating that attracts insects to them. This sticky coating secretes digestive fluids to break down their prey into digestible particles that help the plant to digest them.
The maximum life span of this plant is two years in rare conditions. However, usually, they live up to 1 year before they perish. These plants reproduce through seeds.
Above all, you can see this kind of plant within your vicinity as they exist everywhere in the world. As these plants get nutrients digesting insects, they thrive in wet low nutrient content soil.
Since the inner layer has hair that traps insects, the sugary coating does the job of catching them. The very next second, the leaves of the plant twist inwards, leading the prey to the inner small hairy layer. This layer secretes digestive enzymes that dissolve the prey except for their outer covering. When the process is over, the plant reopens its leaves to catch the next victim.
Thus, in this kind of carnivorous plants, roots do the function of holding the plant to the ground. They get all the nutrients from the prey they trap in. Moreover, they also do the task a camel’s hump does. The roots store water for the plant. Would you be surprised if I say a particular species of this plant is found even in deserts?
8. Byblis
Byblis, also known as rainbow plant, has rare lavender color flowers and glossy leaves that shine in the sunlight. The herb has a digestive system that is like Butterwort and eats the pollinators that sit on them. They have species that blooms each color of the rainbow. So there are seven species in total.
The flower eats with the help of two digestive enzymes, one to secrete a gluey substance to which the preys get trapped. This way, the mosquitoes, and gnats are invited to be devoured by these plants.
They suffer a pathetic death because they succumb to the mighty sticky enzymes that prevent the prey from escaping from the dew drops. There is another enzyme to digest the prey trapped in the dew drops of this plant. Just like Roridula Gorgonias, they also develop a symbiotic relationship with bugs that catch the insects and digests them, initially. The plant gets nutrients from the fecal matter of the bugs.
9. Aldrovanda Vesiculosa
It survives in almost all parts of the earth, including Asia, Africa, Europe, etc. This carnivorous plant also preys like Venus Flytrap as they have two lobes that trap preys without bones. They have tiny hairs that trap small insects without bones and thrust them inside as the nodes close. These plants (also called as waterwheel plants) are without roots that float in water like floating plants. They are found mostly in the forest area of all the continents of the world.
Do you know that these particular plant species are endangered, and in many countries, they have already become extinct? There are only 50 of them existing now. Aldrovanda Vesiculosa is a female plant and is very attractive to any insect. This waterwheel plant has only one species and grows up to 40 cms long.
10. Brochinia Reducta
It is a highly carnivorous plant that exists exclusively in Venezuela, even though some of them are available in Brazil, Columbia, and Guyana. The upper layer of this plant has a waxy coating that reflects ultraviolet rays making it astoundingly beautiful. It’s due to the leaves of the plants that have a unique placement, in such a way that it enables these fascinating carnivorous plants to store water.
The insects find this plant very attractive due to the alluring fragrance the waxy coating emits. The moment they come near the plant, the insects slip into the water and go to a watery grave. The digestive enzymes start the function of absorbing the preys into the system.
What we learned while writing about these fascinating carnivorous plants.
In addition to the typical plants we see in our day to day lives, our mother earth houses lots of meat-eating plants as well. There are many varieties of carnivorous plants available all over the world, some of which are even able to gulp in small fishes.
There are almost 600 species of such plants among which Aldrovanda Vesiculosa is an endangered species. The most common characteristic of carnivorous plants is that they grow in swampy or wet and poor fertility soil. However, the main reason why they are carnivorous is that the land where they grow is incapable of providing essential nutrients to these fascinating carnivorous plants.
Here is an article in regards to, what are the best pots to grow the Carnivorous Plants?
