Pitcher plants are several different carnivorous plants which have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered to be "true" pitcher plants are formed by specialized leaves. The plants attract and drown their prey with nectar.
Drosera, commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow. Various species, which vary greatly in size and form, are native to every continent except Antarctica.
An insectivore is a carnivorous plant or animal that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of eating insects.
Droseraceae is a family of carnivorous flowering plants, also known as the sundew family. It consists of approximately 180 species in three extant genera. Representatives of the Droseraceae are found on all continents except Antarctica.
Nepenthes is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus comprises about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are mostly liana-forming plants of the Old World tropics, ranging from South China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines; westward to Madagascar and the Seychelles (one); southward to Australia (three) and New Caledonia (one); and northward to India (one) and Sri Lanka (one). The greatest diversity occurs on Borneo, Sumatra, and the Philippines, 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 were once thought to drink rainwater from the pitchers, however this is false, the pitchers are filled with digestive fluids not water and monkeys do not drink from them.
The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves, which is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces.
The genus Heliamphora contains 23 species of pitcher plants endemic to South America. The species are collectively known as sun pitchers, based on the mistaken notion that the heli of Heliamphora is from the Greek helios, meaning "sun". In fact, the name derives from helos, meaning marsh, so a more accurate translation of their scientific name would be marsh pitcher plants. Species in the genus Heliamphora are carnivorous plants that consist of a modified leaf form that is fused into a tubular shape. They have evolved mechanisms to attract, trap, and kill insects; and control the amount of water in the pitcher. At least one species produces its own proteolytic enzymes that allows it to digest its prey without the help of symbiotic bacteria.
Darlingtonia californica, also called the California pitcher plant, cobra lily, or cobra plant, is a species of carnivorous plant. As a pitcher plant it is the sole member of the genus Darlingtonia in the family Sarraceniaceae. It is native to Northern California and Oregon growing in bogs and seeps with cold running water. This plant is designated as uncommon due to its rarity in the field.
Byblis is a small genus of carnivorous plants, sometimes termed the rainbow plants for the attractive appearance of their mucilage-covered leaves in bright sunshine. Native to western Australia, it is the only genus in the family Byblidaceae. The first species in the genus was described by the English botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury in 1808. Eight species are now recognized.
The Malpighian tubule system is a type of excretory and osmoregulatory system found in some insects, myriapods, arachnids and tardigrades.
Roridula is a genus of evergreen, insect-trapping shrubs, with two species, of about 1⅓–2 m. It is the only genus in the family Roridulaceae. It has thin, woody, shyly branching, upright, initially brown, later grey stems, with lance- to awl-shaped leaves crowded at their tips. The star-symmetrical flowers consist from the outside in of five, green or reddish, free sepals, alternating with five white, pink or purple, free petals. Further to the middle and opposite the sepals are five stamens with the anthers initially kinked down. These suddenly flip up if the nectar-containing swelling at its base is being touched. The center of the flower is occupied by a superior ovary. The leaves and sepals carry many sticky tentacles of different sizes, that trap insects. Roridula does not break down the insect proteins, but bugs of the genus Pameridea prey on the trapped insects. These later deposit their feces on the leaves, which take up nutrients from the droppings. The species can be found in the Western Cape province of South Africa. They are commonly known as dewstick or fly bush in English and vlieëbos or vlieëbossie in Afrikaans.
Catopsis berteroniana, commonly known as the powdery strap airplant, is an epiphytic bromeliad thought to be a possible carnivorous plant, similar to Brocchinia reducta, although the evidence is equivocal. Its native range is from southern Florida to southern Brazil. It generally grows on the unshaded twigs of trees, and has been shown experimentally to trap more insects in its tank than other bromeliads of comparable size. There are several other species in the genus, none of which is believed to be carnivorous.
Drosera capensis, commonly known as the Cape sundew, is a small rosette-forming carnivorous species of perennial sundew native to the Cape in South Africa. Because of its size, easy to grow nature, and the copious amounts of seed it produces, it has become one of the most common sundews in cultivation, and thus, one of the most frequently introduced and naturalised invasive Drosera species.
A protocarnivorous plant, according to some definitions, traps and kills insects or other animals but lacks the ability to either directly digest or absorb nutrients from its prey like a carnivorous plant. The morphological adaptations such as sticky trichomes or pitfall traps of protocarnivorous plants parallel the trap structures of confirmed carnivorous plants.
Roridula dentata is a protocarnivorous plant native to the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Roridula gorgonias is an evergreen, shyly branching, upright shrub of up to about 1 m (3 ft) high, from the family Roridulaceae. It has awl-shaped leaves with entire margins, crowded at the tip of the branches. These are set with tentacles that secrete a sticky, shiny resin from the thicker gland at their tips, that catch many airborne items. At the center of the shoots appear inflorescences between July to October that consist of up to twelve flowers in spikes, each on a short flower stalk, with a bract at its base. The 5-merous flower is about 2½ cm (1 in) in diameter and has pinkish purple or white petals. The plants do not digest the trapped insects, but the bug Pameridea roridulae sucks out their juices and the plant absorbs nutrients from the bug's droppings. It is therefore considered a protocarnivorous plant. It is called Gorgons dewstick, fly bush or fly catcher bush in English and vliebos, or vlieëbossie in Afrikaans.. R. gorgonias is an endemic species home to the southwest of the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Pinguicula longifolia, commonly known as the long-leaved butterwort, is a perennial carnivorous subalpine plant of the Central Pyrenees, found on both sides of the border. It catches its prey by using its modified leaves that lie on the ground and have “densely covered stalked glands that bear a droplet of sticky mucilage on its top.” The need to capture arthropods is driven by the lack of nutrients present in the soil. P. l. subsp. longifolia obtain their nutrition primarily from flying insects, mainly diptera, which replenished the carnivorous plant with nitrogen. P. l. subsp. longifolia grows in wet shady areas and on vertical or overhanging limestone walls. It has been found at altitudes between 700 – 1900 meters. In the spring, the winter buds open and the first carnivorous leaves present themselves. These leaves are then followed by the flowers in early summer. Throughout summer the leaves can grow up to 14 cm in length and have glands present on both sides of the leaves, which is highly characteristic of P. l. subsp. longifolia. More carnivorous leaves arise throughout summer, and when the conditions become unfavourable, around autumn, a protective winter casing composed of scale like leaves is produced, in the centre of the rosette, called the hibernacula, also known as the plant bud. The leaves halt production and the old leaves wither and decay; P. l. subsp. longifolia is now ready for the winter dormancy. There must be optimal growth during the summer for P. l. subsp. longifolia, otherwise they produce weakened hibernacula which rot very easily.
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. However, carnivorous plants generate energy from photosynthesis. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. Charles Darwin wrote Insectivorous Plants, the first well-known treatise on carnivorous plants, in 1875. Carnivorous plants can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands.
Pinguicula, commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. They use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 13 are native to Europe, 9 to North America, and some to northern Asia. The largest number of species is in South and Central America.
The tissues that are concefjbhknksecretion of gums, resins, volatile oils, nectar latex, and other substances in plants are called secretory tissues. These tissues are classified as either laticiferous tissues or glandular tissues.
