Many of our readers are well aware of the basics of the food chain: plants get their nutrients from sunlight, animals eat them, and predators eat other animals. However, not everyone knows that there are exceptions to this rule, as well as to many others: there are carnivorous 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 carnivorous plants to you. 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 they satisfy the "hunger feeling".
Perhaps you know that plants have an autotrophic metabolism: they convert chemical compounds found in the air and soil intoorganic substances. They serve as a source of food for many living organisms. The situation is different with carnivorous plants (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.
Usually, these perennial plants grow on rather poor soils, which lack phosphorus, nitrogen, magnesium, potassium, sodium. On the territory of Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union, there are 18 species that are part of 4 genera of carnivorous plants. You are probably wondering what they look like. Residents of the northwestern regions of Russia are well aware of the name of a predatory plant that grows in swampy areas: these are two types of sundews - English and round-leaved.
It is interesting that in Russia the sundew has enjoyed good fame from time immemorial. She was even given a very affectionate name - solar or God's dew, dewdrop, royal eyes. Even before the advent of antibiotics widely used today, this plant was used by traditional healers for the treatment of respiratory diseases, for headaches and migraines, as a cosmetic remedy for warts.
Species of carnivorous plants
Insectivorous plants is the collective name for almost 630 species from 19 families that catch and digest small animals, mostly insects. So they make up for photosynthesis of one of the forms of heterotrophic nutrition. As a result, carnivorous plants, photos of which we posted in this article, are less dependent onfrom soil inorganic nitrogen, which is necessary for the synthesis of their proteins.
These are mostly perennial herbaceous plants. Experts believe that real carnivorous plants have evolved in five different groups of colors. How do these unusual creatures eat? What plant is carnivorous? What features does it have? We will try to answer these questions.
As a rule, "predators" are quite attractive - they are brightly colored, have a strong scent that attracts insects. In fairness, it should be recognized that some carnivorous plants, photos of which can be seen in floriculture publications, smell so pleasant that not only insects like it. For example, the Venus flytrap has a sweet scent. The Indians consider this flower a symbol of the feminine, harmony and love. But the predatory plant Darlingtonia emits not the most pleasant smell of rot. It is the result of digestive activity.
Over time, the leaves of carnivorous plants have changed, turning into trapping organs: water lilies (urns), which are filled with digesting fluid, sticky traps, quick-acting traps. For example, a sundew leaf is dotted with droplets of a sticky substance. Americans call this plant gem grass. The insect, attracted by the shine, sits on the trap sheet and sticks tightly: the more actively the midge tries to free itself, the more firmly it is fixed in the adhesive composition.
Most carnivorous plants are able to tell what is edible from what is not. They do not respond to false signals, for example,to raindrops. But when an insect sits on a trap, the villi on the leaf wrap around it from all sides, and the leaf curls up into a cocoon. In this state, substances are released from it that are similar in composition to the digestive juice of animals. They dissolve the chitin of the integuments of insects, and the nutrients are transferred through the vessels of the plant. The trap opens after a few days - it is ready to hunt again.
A leaf does not roll up during the capture of an insect. The nitrogen contained in the body of the victim, gives an impetus to the development of the digestive fluid: it looks like fat, probably from here the name of the plant came from.
Darlingtonia, Sarracenia and Nepentas hunt a little differently: the leaves of these plants have transformed into jugs that are filled with digestive juice. Insects, hitting 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, are covered with sensitive hairs. It is worth touching one of them, as the shutters instantly slam shut. The plant begins to secrete digestive substances, and after the completion of the “meal”, the leaves reopen. The digestive cycle of carnivorous plants lasts from five hours to two months.
And now we will present you the most interesting, in our opinion, plants. The names of carnivorous plants are mostly known only to specialists, but we hope that the photos below the description will help you rememberthese unusual representatives of the flora of our planet.
Nepenthes
Nepenthes differs from other carnivorous plants in size: the “jug” of such a plant often reaches a length of 30 cm. Such a 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 get into the jar, the plant begins to digest them. This process can take up to two months.
Scientists have about 150 species of Nepenthes, which grow mainly in the eastern hemisphere. Interestingly, jars of some varieties of these plants use monkeys as drinking cups, because these are large animals that are not threatened by the role of prey.
Stylidium
Scientists continue to argue about the carnivorous nature of this plant even today. They did not agree on whether the stylidium is really carnivorous, or in this way, the plant is protected from annoying insects. Some varieties have sticky hairs that trap non-pollinating insects, and their leaves secrete digestive enzymes.
Research is still ongoing to determine the significance of insects in the life of the stylidium.
Zhiryanka
There are several versions explaining the origin of the name of this plant: digestive substances resembling fat, wide leaves with a specialoily coating. The homeland of this carnivorous plant is North, South and Central America, Eurasia. Victims of fatwort get caught in sticky mucus and food enzymes slowly dissolve them.
Darlingtonia
A fairly rare carnivorous plant native to northern California and the frigid waters of the Oregon swamps. It is very insidious: the plant not only lures insects into its jar thanks to its sweet aroma, but also has false “exits” in it. Doomed victims try to climb them to freedom, but only sink more into the sticky slime.
Interestingly, scientists know that a certain type of insect pollinates this plant and remains unharmed, but science does not yet know which one.
Genlisea
Unlike most of the carnivorous plants we present to you today, the genlisea's diet most often consists of protozoa and other microscopic organisms, which it attracts and eats using special trap leaves that grow underground. These underground leaves are long, light, and root-like in appearance. In addition to them, the plant also has ordinary green leaves that are above the ground and participate in the process of photosynthesis.
Genlisea is distributed in 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 mostbeautiful plants on our planet.
Venus flytrap grows up to 15 cm wide. The leaves are arranged in rosettes around the underground stem. The plant can have four to seven leaves, all of which are traps that consist of two petals. Spikes are located along the outer edge. The flycatcher grows low to the ground. This makes it easy for insects to 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 carnivorous plant appear. An interesting fact: to minimize false slams, the Venus flytrap has developed a unique mechanism for its trap: it will only slam shut when the victim touches two inner hairs within twenty seconds.
Aldrovanda vesicular
And this is an aquatic version of the flycatcher that floats on the water surface of lakes, has no roots and lures animals into its miniature traps that close in a hundredth of a second. Venus flytrap and Aldrovandus have a common ancestor - a plant that lived on our planet in the Cenozoic era.
Cephalot
The sweet aroma emitted by the cephalothy attracts insects that fall into its trap jar, where the victim is slowly digested. The lids of the plant's jars resemble translucent cages that give insects a false hope of salvation. This plant is related to some flowering plants (for example, oaksand apple trees), which is not typical for other carnivorous species.
Roridula
This is a native of South Africa. Despite the fact that the roridula is a carnivorous plant, it cannot digest insects, capturing them with sticky hairs. The plant provides this work to horsefly bugs of the species Pameridea roridulae. Bed bug waste is an excellent fertilizer. In Europe, fossils of this plant were discovered, whose age is estimated at 40 million years.
Carnivorous plants at home
Even experienced flower growers admit that growing such unusual plants is quite difficult. Perhaps you have visited exhibitions of carnivorous plants. To grow such specimens, certain rules must be followed:
- predator plants are desirable to grow in florariums;
- they need soft diffused lighting, they cannot tolerate direct sunlight;
- watering is carried out with soft water. Many growers recommend using distilled water;
- the vast majority of predator plants do not tolerate drying out of the soil, while excessive moisture is destructive for them;
- should not fertilize the substrate in which the flower grows (perlite, sphagnum moss, 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 enter a dormant period. ATthis time the "predators" are not fed.
- The awakening of the plant occurs in the spring, when new traps begin to form.
Flowering
Experienced lovers of these exotic plants recommend removing the ovaries of flowers, explaining that this process greatly depletes the plant. This can be difficult to do: most of them have unusually beautiful flowers.
Feeding
Judging by the reviews of flower growers, this is perhaps the most difficult thing in keeping "predators" at home. The ideal food for these plants is what the plant naturally eats.
Fatty and sundew can not be fed, they find food for themselves, provided that they are not kept in a closed florarium. Do not feed flowers with insects, which contain a large amount of calcium. And fruit flies are quite suitable for this purpose. From seeds, carnivorous plants are grown quite rarely - they do not germinate well. It is more expedient to purchase an adult plant.
