Carnivorous plants

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals, typically insects and other arthropods, but sometimes as large as small mammals which can accidentally fall in and drown. Carnivorous plants still generate their energy from photosynthesis but are adapted to grow in places such as swamps and bogs where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients such as nitrogen.

Carnivorous plants are found on all continents except Antarctica. There are about few hundred species of carnivorous plants spread across a few plant families and numerous genera and due to their narrow distribution and endemism, a quarter of them are threatened with extinction.

Five basic trapping mechanisms are found in carnivorous plants,

1. Pitfall traps (pitcher plants) that trap prey in a rolled leaf that contains a pool of digestive enzymes or bacteria.
2. Flypaper traps use a sticky mucilage.
3. Snap traps utilise rapid leaf movements.
4. Bladder traps suck in prey with a bladder that generates an internal vacuum.
5. Lobster-pot traps, also known as eel traps, use inward-pointing hairs to force prey to move towards a digestive organ.

These traps may be active or passive, depending on whether movement aids the capture of prey. For example, Triphyophyllum is a passive flypaper that secretes mucilage, but whose leaves do not grow or move in response to prey capture, in contrast to sundews’ tentacles which can actively bend to aid in prey capture.

Most carnivorous plants live in high light, waterlogged habitats with extremely low soil nitrogen and phosphorus. High-light environments allowed for the trade-off between photosynthetic leaves and photosynthetically inefficient prey-capturing traps, suggesting that carnivory in plants is an evolutionary “last resort” when nitrogen and phosphorus are extremely limited.

Source: Wikipedia

Genus Byblis

Genus Cephalotus

Genus Drosera

Genus Nepenthes

Genus Stylidum

Genus Utricularia