Carnivorous Plants

Carnivorous Plants

There are many different varities of these plants throughout the world. Many of the varieties live among the rainforests. I myself find these plants a bit fascinating. (Perhaps it is the Slytherin in me XD) So I thought that we could do a lesson on them. I am going to make a list of my favorite carniverous plants below. All you have to do is give me a detailed description on four from the list. Pick whatever four you want. Pictures of the plants can be included if you wish. Each description will be worth up to 25 points, so there is a total of 100 maximum points that can be earned. Have fun and please site your sources!

Byblis (Rainbow plant)
Cephalotus (Australian pitcher plant)
Darlingtonia (Cobra Lily)
Dionaea (Venus flytrap)
Drosera (Sundews)
Nepenthes (Tropical pitcher plant)
Pinguicula (Butterworts)
Sarracenia (Trumpet pitcher plant)

Carniverous Plants


~Darlingtonia (Cobra Lily)~
~Dionaea (Venus flytrap)~
~Drosera (Sundews)~
~Pinguicula (Butterworts)~



The Cobra Lily, Darlingtonia californica, is a relative of Sarracenia, the trumpet pitcher plant. They crop up in the Northwestern United States. The Cobra Lily is an upright pitcher plant with pitchers that can grow to thirty-six inches. The Cobra Lily gets its common name from the structure of the forward-bent top of the pitcher, which resembles a cobra. The chamber atop of the pitcher is covered with see-through fenestrations. The opening is at the bottom of the hood. Insects enter through the opening, and once inside, the fenestrations provide more light than the entrance to the trap, resulting in the insect flying towards the brighter light, which isn’t truly the exit, and becomes trapped and then gets digested.


The Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, has a very strange trap. The trap is a leaf with two lobes, with trigger hairs, bordered with linking "teeth". When the trigger hairs are bothered the lobes of the leaves snap shut, entrapping the insect inside. After the insect is trapped, digestive chemicals enter the body of the entrapped insect and the fluids are absorbed into the leaf’s exterior. The boWhen these are disturbed, the lobes of the leaf snap together, sealing the hapless insect inside. After trapping, digestive chemicals enter the insect's body, and the fluids are absorbed into the leaf's surface. The part of the insect’s body, that isn’t absorbed, is carried off by the wind when the trap opens again.


Sundews have leaves covered with tiny tentacles and at the tip of each tentacle the plant secretes a drop of transparent, sticky mucilage. The mucilage is the muse for the genus' common name. When lit up by the sun, the drops give the plant an overall glowing effect. This liquid traps insects by it’s appealing look and smell, but when the insect touches it the thick liquid hold them into place and the enzymes in the liquid begin to break down the tissues of the insect’s body. The fluids then are absorbed by the plant


Butterworts, pinguicula, are found primarily in the Northern hemisphere. They have large, flat leaves that are covered with many glands. The first, the larger of the two, produces a sticky material that holds the prey in place. The greasy look the sticky material makes, inspires the genus' common name. The second, smaller gland, produces a slightly acid substance, which digests the soft pieces of the insect's body, when the victim moves. In many species of the pinguicula, the ends of the leaves bend upward. Pinguicula are found primarily in the Northern hemisphere. They range from arctic, northern species to tropical evergreen forms. Many of the more popular and easy to grow

Carnivorous Plants



Nepenthes (Tropical pitcher plant)
Cephalous (Australian pitcher plant)
Pinguicula (Butterworts)
Sarracenia (Trumpet pitcher plant)




Nepenthes
The Nepenthes popularly known as Tropical Pitcher Plants or Monkey Cups, are a genus of carnivorous plants in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae that comprises roughly 117 species, numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are vine forming plants of the Old World tropics, ranging from South China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines; westward to Madagascar (2 species) and the Seychelles (1); southward to Australia (3) and New Caledonia (1); and northward to India (1) and Sri Lanka (1). The greatest diversity occurs on Borneo and Sumatra with many endemic species. Many are plants of hot humid lowland areas, but the majority are tropical montane plants, receiving warm days but cool to cold humid nights year round. A few are considered tropical alpine with cool days and nights near freezing. The name 'Monkey Cups' refers to the fact that monkeys have been observed drinking rainwater from these plants.



Cephalous
ephalotus is a monotypic genus of southwest Australian pitcher plants, containing a single carnivorous species Cephalotus follicularis, commonly called the Albany Pitcher Plant, the fly-catcher plant, the mocassin plant, or the Western Australian Pitcher Plant.
The plant produces both non-carnivorous and carnivorous leaves, the latter looking something like small green moccasins.
Like many other pitcher plants, the pitcher has a peristome, which is the rim of downward pointing spikes surrounding the pitcher entrance, and a lid (operculum), which prevents excess rainwater from collecting in the pitcher and diluting its digestive enzymes. The operculum has patches of translucent cells which serve to confuse its insect prey by appearing like patches of sky.
The taxonomy of the family Cephalotaceae in the order Saxifragales has been abandoned. In a new, developing system this family comes in a new order (Oxalidales); others place it under Rosales.[citation needed]
The larvae of Badisis ambulans, a micropezid fly, develop inside the pitchers.

Pinguicula
The butterworts are a group of carnivorous plants comprising the genus Pinguicula. Members of this genus use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environments. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 12 are native to Europe, 9 to North America, and the rest are found in northern Asia, South and Central America and southern Mexico.


Sarracenia
Sarracenia is a genus comprising the eight (or arguably up to thirteen) species of North American pitcher plants. The genus belongs to the family Sarraceniaceae, which also contains the closely allied genera Darlingtonia and Heliamphora.
Sarracenia are carnivorous plants indigenous to the eastern seaboard, Texas, the Great Lakes area and southeastern Canada, with most species occurring only in the south-east United States (only S. purpurea occurs in cold-temperate regions). The plant's leaves have evolved into a funnel in order to trap insects, and which produce enzymes to digest their prey. The insects are attracted by a nectar-like secretion on the lip of pitchers, as well as a combination of color and scent. Slippery footing at the pitchers' rim, aided in at least one species by a narcotic drug lacing the nectar, causes insects to fall inside, where they drown and are digested by the plant as a nutrient source.
In common with many carnivorous plants, Sarracenia usually inhabit permanently wet regions with a low pH whose nutrients, particularly nitrates, are continuously leached away by water or made unavailable by the low pH. Sarracenia consequently gain a competitive advantage over other plants from the substances they extract from their animal prey.


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org


sorry i didnt put any pictures in my computer is being pathetically slow so ill come back and edit this post and put pictures of the plants in when my computer is working properly.

Byblis (Rainbow plant)

Byblis liniflora is native to northern Australia.
Byblis liniflora are small, delicate, and scrambling. There stems reaching around 12" in height. The leaves are a few inches long and threadlike, covered with sticky hairs. Unlike the sundews, the leaves are incapable of movement and can not coil around prey. It is not know for certain if they secrete acids and enzymes which dissolve the insect or rely on symbiosis.
Seedlings often flower in a little less than 4 months.
Disturbing the roots often lead to death of the plant.
Byblis liniflora is native to northern Australia.
Byblis liniflora are small, delicate, and scrambling. There stems reaching around 12" in height. The leaves are a few inches long and threadlike, covered with sticky hairs. Unlike the sundews, the leaves are incapable of movement and can not coil around prey. It is not know for certain if they secrete acids and enzymes which dissolve the insect or rely on symbiosis.
Seedlings often flower in a little less than 4 months.
Disturbing the roots often lead to death of the plant.



Resource: http://mysite.verizon.net/elgecko1989/Byblis.html

Cephalotus (Australian pitcher plant)

The Australian Pitcher Plant is native to south-western Australia.
Cephalotus follicularis grow in a rosette arrangement. The pitchers radiate from a central point, along with a number of flat, non-carnivorous leaves. The pitchers start out as little fuzzy knobs at the ends of elongated petioles. They slowly inflate to form the pitcher.
The pitchers secret nectar to lure insects to the opening. Cephalotus follicularis has a white collar around the pitcher opening which is slippery and heavily baited with nectar. When insects try to get this nectar they usually slip and fall into acids and enzymes below, which dissolve the insect. The pitchers then reabsorb the nutrient rich fluid.


Resource: http://mysite.verizon.net/elgecko1989/Cephalotus_follicularis.html

Darlingtonia (Cobra Lily)

The Cobra Lily, Darlingtonia californica, is native to southwestern Oregon and northern California. This carnivorous plant lures it's insect prey with a sweet nectar which is inside the leaf opening under it's hood.
Once inside, the insect becomes confused by the many transparent areas of the upper leaf surfaces, which appear to be exits. As the insect checks these false exits searching for an escape route, it is led down the tube structure and is unable to return to the top of the plant because of the slippery smooth surface of the inner tube and the sharp, downward pointing hairs which effectively block any chance of escape. Eventually, the insects will fall into a pool of liquid digestive enzyme in the base of the leaf where they are absorbed as food for the plant.


Resource: http://www.thegardenhelper.com/cobralily.html



Dionaea (Venus flytrap)

The leaves of Venus' Flytrap open wide and on them are short, stiff hairs called trigger or sensitive hairs. When anything touches these hairs enough to bend them, the two lobes of the leaves snap shut trapping whatever is inside. The trap will shut in less than a second. The trap doesn't close all of the way at first. It is thought that it stays open for a few seconds in order to allow very small insects to escape because they wouldn't provide enough food. If the object isn't food, e.g., a stone, or a nut, the trap will reopen in about twelve hours and 'spit' it out.
When the trap closes over food, the cilia. finger-like projections, keep larger insects inside. Fold your hands together lacing your fingers to see what the trap looks like. In a few minutes the trap will shut tightly and form an air-tight seal in order to keep the digestive fluids inside and bacteria out.
If an insect is too large it will stick out of the trap. This allows bacteria and molds on the insect to thrive. Eventually the trap turns black, rots and falls off.
The trap constricts tightly around the insect and secretes digestive juices, much like those in your stomach. It dissolves the soft, inner parts of the insect, but not the tough, outer part called the exoskeleton. At the end of the digestive process, which takes from five to twelve days, the trap reabsorbs the digestive fluid and then reopens. The leftover parts of the insect, the exoskeleton, blow away in the wind or are washed away by rain. The time it takes for the trap to reopen depends on the size of the insect, temperature, the age of the trap, and the number of times it has gone through this process.
If you feed a Venus Flytrap something that doesn't move, e.g., a dead insect, it will not close tightly over it. You need to squeeze the trap and move the food around so it imitates the action of a live insect.
The lobe manufactures digestive juices and an antiseptic juice. This keeps the insect from decaying over the few days it is in the trap and purifies prey that it captures.
People still do not understand fully how the trap closes. The Venus' Flytrap does not have a nervous system or any muscles or tendons. Scientists theorize that it moves from some type of fluid pressure activated by an actual electrical current that runs through each lobe.

Resource: http://www.botany.org/bsa/misc/carn.html




Ginny :ginny: