The basics of the food chain are well known to many of our readers: plants receive nutrients from sunlight, animals feed on them, and predators feed on other animals. However, not everyone knows that there are exceptions to this rule, as well as to many others: there are predatory plants in nature. They attract animals into traps - most often insects, although lizards, snails, and in some cases even small mammals can become their victims.
In this article, we will introduce you to predatory plants. Photos and their names will help to appreciate the exquisite beauty of these exotics.
Amazing plants
You should know that the so-called carnivorous plants can be found on all continents. Botanists have united this group of perennial herbaceous plants. Often they belong to different genera and families, but they are united by the way of satisfying the “feeling of hunger”.
You may know that plants have an autotrophic metabolism: they convert chemical compounds found in air and soil into organic substances. They serve as a source of nutrition for many living organisms. The situation with predatory plants is different (we will present photos and names below): they make up for the lack of chemical compounds necessary for their development due to additional nutrition: insects and much less often small animals.
Typically, these perennials grow on fairly poor soils, which lack phosphorus, nitrogen, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. In Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union, there are 18 species that are part of 4 genera of predatory plants. Surely you are interested in how they look. Residents of the northwestern regions of Russia are well aware of the name of a predatory plant growing in marshy areas: these are two species of sundews - English and round-leaved.
It is interesting that the sundew has enjoyed good reputation in Russia for centuries. She was even given a very affectionate name - sun or God's dew, dewdrop, princely eyes. Even before the emergence of antibiotics widely used today, this plant was used by traditional healers to treat respiratory diseases, headaches and migraines, as a cosmetic remedy for warts.
Species of Carnivorous Plants
Insectivorous plants are the collective name of nearly 630 species from 19 families that catch and digest small animals, most often insects. So they make up for the photosynthesis of one of the forms of heterotrophic nutrition. As a result, predatory plants, the photos of which we posted in this article, are less dependent on soil inorganic nitrogen, which is necessary for the synthesis of their proteins.
These are mainly perennial herbaceous plants. Experts believe that real predatory plants evolved in five different groups of flowers. How do these unusual creatures eat? Which plant is predatory? What features does it have? We will try to answer these questions.
As a rule, “predators” are quite attractive — they are brightly colored and have a strong aroma that attracts insects. In fairness, it should be recognized that some predatory plants, photos of which can be seen in publications on floriculture, have such a pleasant smell that not only insects like it. For example, a venus flytrap has a sweet aroma. Indians consider this flower a symbol of the feminine, harmony and love. But the predatory plant darlingtonia does not produce the most pleasant smell of rot. This is the result of digestive activity.
Over time, the leaves of predatory plants have changed, turning into trapping organs: water lilies (urns), which are filled with digesting liquid, sticky traps, quickly triggered traps. For example, a leaf of sundew is dotted with droplets of a sticky substance. Americans call this plant gem grass. The insect, attracted by the brilliance, sits on a leaf-trap and sticks tightly: the more actively the midge tries to free itself, the stronger it is fixed in the adhesive composition.
Most insectivorous plants are able to distinguish edible from inedible. They do not respond to false signals, for example, to raindrops. But when an insect sits on a trap, the villi located on the leaf encircle it from all sides, and the leaf curls into a cocoon. In this state, substances are released from it that are close in composition to the digestive juice of animals. They dissolve the chitin of insect covers, and nutrients are transported through the vessels of the plant. The trap opens in a few days - it is again ready for the hunt.
In a girly leaf, the leaf does not fold during the capture of the insect. Nitrogen contained in the victim’s body gives impetus to the production of digestion liquid: it looks like fat, apparently, this is where the name of the plant came from.
Darlingtonia, sarracenia and nepentas hunt a little differently: the leaves of these plants were transformed into jugs that are filled with digestive juice. Insects, having fallen on the inner wall of the leaf, slide to the bottom of the trap, where they die.
The most active hunter is the venus flytrap. Its leaves, more like shells, they are covered with sensitive hairs. As soon as one of them is touched, the flaps instantly slam shut. The plant begins to secrete digestive substances, and after the completion of the “meal” the leaves open again. The digestive cycle in predatory plants lasts from five hours to two months.
And now we will present you the most interesting, in our opinion, plants. The names of predatory plants are mostly known only to specialists, but we hope that the photos posted below the description will help you remember these unusual representatives of the flora of our planet.
Nepenthes
Nepentes is distinguished from other carnivorous plants by its size: the "jug" of such a plant often reaches a length of 30 cm. This trap is ideal for capturing and digesting insects and even small lizards, amphibians and mammals. The plant is famous for its sweet aroma, which attracts victims. As soon as they fall into the jug, the plant begins to digest them. This process can last up to two months.
Scientists have about 150 species of Nepenthes, which grow mainly in the eastern hemisphere. Interestingly, pitchers of some varieties of these plants use monkeys as cups for drinking, because they are large animals that are not threatened with the role of the victim.
Stylidium
Scientists continue to argue about the carnivores of this plant today. They did not come to a consensus about whether the stylidium is really carnivorous, or so the plant protects itself from annoying insects. Some species have sticky hairs that trap insects that are not involved in the pollination process, and their leaves secrete digestive enzymes.
Studies are still being conducted to determine the significance of insects in the life of a stylidium.
Zhiryanka
There are several versions explaining the origin of the name of this plant: digestive substances resembling fat, broad leaves with a special oily coating. The homeland of this carnivorous plant is North, South and Central America, Eurasia. Fatty woman’s victims fall into sticky mucus, and food enzymes dissolve them slowly.
Darlingtonia
A fairly rare predatory plant that grows in northern California and the cold waters of Oregon marshes. It is very insidious: the plant not only lures insects into its jug due to the sweet aroma, but also has false “exits” in it. Doomed victims are trying to get out of them on freedom, but only more immersed in sticky mucus.
It is interesting that scientists know that a certain species of insects pollinates this plant and remains unharmed, but what kind of science is not yet known.
Genlisey
Unlike most predatory plants that we present to you today, the Genlisean diet most often consists of the simplest and other microscopic organisms that it attracts and eats using special trap leaves that grow underground. These underground leaves are long, bright and resemble roots. In addition to them, the plant also has ordinary green leaves that are above the ground and participate in the process of photosynthesis.
Genesis is common in the regions of Africa, Central and South America.
Venus flytrap
Dionaea muscipula is a small carnivorous plant with an outstanding reputation. The great Charles Darwin considered him one of the most beautiful plants on our planet.
Venus flytrap grows up to 15 cm wide. The leaves are arranged in the form of rosettes around the underground stem. A plant can have from four to seven leaves, all of which are traps that consist of two petals. On the outer edge are the spikes. Flycatcher grows low to the ground. This allows insects to easily crawl into the trap. The flowers are quite small in the shape of a star located at the ends of the stems.
The plant blooms in May-June, and then black small seeds of a predatory plant appear. An interesting fact: to minimize false slamming, the Venus flytrap developed a unique mechanism for its trap: it closes only when the victim touches two internal hairs for twenty seconds.
Bubble Aldrovand
And this is the water version of the flycatcher, which floats on the water surface of the lakes, has no roots and lures animals into its miniature traps, which slam in a hundredth of a second. Venus flytrap and Aldwand have a common ancestor - a plant that lived on our planet in the Cenozoic era.
Cephalot
The sweet aroma emitted by the cephalot attracts insects that fall into its trap jug, where the victim is slowly digested. The lids of the jugs of the plant resemble translucent cells that give insects a false hope of salvation. This plant is related to some flowering plants (for example, oaks and apple trees), which is not typical for other carnivorous species.
Roridula
This is a native of South Africa. Despite the fact that roridula is a predatory plant, it cannot digest insects, capturing them with sticky hairs. This work is provided by the plant to horsefly bugs of the species Pameridea roridulae. Bedbug waste is an excellent fertilizer. In Europe, fossils of this plant were discovered, whose age is estimated at 40 million years.
Predatory plants at home
Even experienced flower growers recognize that growing such unusual plants is quite difficult. You may have visited the exhibition of carnivorous plants. To grow such samples, you must follow certain rules:
- predator plants are preferably grown in florariums;
- they need soft diffused lighting, they cannot tolerate direct sunlight;
- watering is carried out with soft water. Many growers recommend using distilled;
- the vast majority of predator plants do not tolerate drying out of the soil, while excessive moisture is harmful to them;
- do not fertilize the substrate in which the flower grows (perlite, moss-sphagnum, vermiculite). Fertile soils are not used;
- “Predators” are almost never transplanted, only occasionally an overgrown plant is transferred to a larger container;
- in winter, carnivorous plants have a dormant period. At this time, "predators" are not fed.
- Awakening of the plant occurs in the spring, when new traps begin to form.
Bloom
Experienced lovers of these exotic plants recommend removing the ovary of flowers, explaining that this process greatly depletes the plant. It can be difficult to do this: most of them have unusually beautiful flowers.
Feeding
Judging by the reviews of flower growers, this is perhaps the most difficult in the home maintenance of "predators". The ideal food for these plants is what the plant eats in vivo.
You can not feed the fat and sundew, they find food for themselves, provided that they are not kept in a closed florarium. Do not feed flowers with insects that contain large amounts of calcium. And fruit flies are quite suitable for this purpose. Carnivorous plants are rarely grown from seeds - they do not germinate well. It is more advisable to purchase an adult plant.