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.
Sarraceniaceae are a family of pitcher plants, belonging to order Ericales.
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.
Utricularia, commonly and collectively called the bladderworts, is a genus of carnivorous plants consisting of approximately 233 species. They occur in fresh water and wet soil as terrestrial or aquatic species across every continent except Antarctica. Utricularia are cultivated for their flowers, which are often compared with those of snapdragons and orchids, especially amongst carnivorous plant enthusiasts.
Genlisea is a genus of carnivorous plants also known as corkscrew plants. The 30 or so species grow in wet terrestrial to semi-aquatic environments distributed throughout Africa and Central and South America. The plants use highly modified underground leaves to attract, trap and digest minute microfauna, particularly protozoans. Although suggested a century earlier by Charles Darwin, carnivory in the genus was not proven until 1998.
Sarracenia is a genus comprising 8 to 11 species of North American pitcher plants, commonly called trumpet pitchers. The genus belongs to the family Sarraceniaceae, which also contain the closely allied genera Darlingtonia and Heliamphora.
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.
Utricularia gibba, commonly known as the humped or floating bladderwort, is a small, mat-forming species of carnivorous aquatic bladderwort. It is found on all continents except Antarctica.
Utricularia resupinata, popularly known as lavender bladderwort or northeastern bladderwort, is a small perennial subaquatic carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. It is native to eastern Canada, the United States, and Central America. This plant species has an interesting etymology, growth pattern, ecology, and research history. As a plant that is threatened or endangered in many of the States where it is found, it is a candidate for sound conservation efforts.
Philcoxia is a genus of seven rare plant species in the Plantaginaceae that are endemic to Brazil and resemble terrestrial species of the genus Utricularia. The genus, formally described in 2000, consists of the species P. bahiensis, P. goiasensis, P. minensis, P. tuberosa, P. rhizomatosa, P. maranhensis and P. courensis, each of the first three named for the Brazilian state to which it is endemic. The species are characterized by subterranean stems, peltate leaves at or below the soil surface, and five-lobed calyces. Their habitat has been reported as areas of white sand in the midst of cerrado vegetation at an elevation between 800 and 1450 m. Initial descriptions of the genus included suspicions that the plethora of stalked capitate glands on the upper surfaces of leaves was an indication that these species may be carnivorous. A study published in 2007 tested P. minensis for protease activity, a typical test for the carnivorous syndrome, and could detect none. Later studies detected other digestive enzymes such as phosphatases and qualitatively assessed prey digestion and nutrient uptake, suggesting that it is a true carnivorous plant. The genus epithet honors David Philcox, a botanist at Kew Gardens who worked extensively in tropical Scrophulariaceae.
Colura zoophaga is a species of epiphytic liverwort that is endemic to the African highlands, specifically parts of Kenya. It belongs to the genus Colura, which has been hypothesized to be carnivorous as early as 1893. It is a recently described species that was the subject of the first scientific study aimed at investigating the allegations of carnivory in liverworts.
Colura is a genus of epiphytic liverworts and consists of approximately 60 species that are distributed mostly in the tropics. Species in this genus are no larger than a couple millimetres in size and may possess small water sac organs formed from fused leaf margins that trap small ciliates. It is because of this trapping mechanism that some species have been suspected of carnivory, even as early as 1893. One such species, Colura zoophaga, was the subject of a study that aimed to investigate the assumed carnivorous habit among liverworts. The results confirmed that ciliates were captured and died within the water sac traps, which are not unlike the bladder traps of Utricularia. Whether the species attract, digest, or absorb the prey has not been confirmed, however. The epiphytic habit of the genus, requiring all nutrients to be acquired from rainwater, is similar to the habit of known carnivorous plants.
Utricularia macrorhiza, the common bladderwort, is a perennial suspended aquatic carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. U. macrorhiza is native to North America and eastern temperate Asia.
Utricularia humboldtii is a large perennial carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. Peter Taylor lists it as either an "aquatic-epiphyte", a subaquatic or a terrestrial species. U. humboldtii is endemic to South America, where it is found in Brazil, Guyana, and Venezuela. It was originally published and described by Robert Hermann Schomburgk in 1840. It is usually found growing in the water-filled leaf axils of some species of bromeliad, including Brocchinia micrantha, B. tatei, and B. reducta and also plants in the genus Orectanthe. It also grows as an epiphyte on tree trunks or as a subaquatic or terrestrial species in shallow water or wet soil in open savanna. It is found mostly between altitudes of 1,200 m (3,937 ft) and 2,500 m (8,202 ft), though it has been found at altitudes as low as 300 m (984 ft). It has been collected in flower throughout every month of the year.
Utricularia livida, the leaden bladderwort, is a species of flowering plant in the bladderwort family, native to central and southern Africa, and Mexico. Growing to 50 cm (20 in) tall and broad, it is a carnivorous perennial. It was originally described and published by Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer in 1837.
Utricularia sandersonii, Sanderson's bladderwort, is a species of flowering plant in the bladderwort family. Originally described and published by the British botanist Daniel Oliver in 1865, it is a carnivorous evergreen perennial, endemic to northern KwaZulu-Natal and Transkei in South Africa.
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.
Pleurozia is the only genus of liverworts in the family Pleuroziaceae, which is now classified in its own order Pleuroziales, but was previously included in a broader circumscription of the Jungermanniales. The genus includes twelve species, and as a whole is both physically distinctive and widely distributed.
Utricularia cornigera is a large perennial carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. U. cornigera was described in 2009 by Miloslav Studnička based on his study of the variation in cultivated plants labeled Utricularia reniformis and apparent different geographic ranges. U. cornigera is found on Serra dos Órgãos in south-eastern Brazil and as of the new species' description, was not found in the presence of U. reniformis. Utricularia cornigera has been grown in cultivation under the name U. reniformis and with the cultivar name 'Big Sister'. It differs from U. reniformis by having 6-8 primordial leaves emerging from the seed during germination with a float and whorl of leaves. Utricularia cornigera also produces two distinct types of bladder traps that are dimorphic and it generally has larger leaves.
Steel trap is an informal term in the study of comparative plant physiology of the carnivorous plants. "Steel trap", more particularly "active steel trap", refers to prey capture devices such as occur in some members of the family Droseraceae, and in particular in the genera Dionaea and Aldrovanda ("waterwheel"). The term apparently originated with the author Francis Ernest Lloyd in 1942, in which he adopted the overly general term "steel trap" rather than say, "gin trap" or a more adjectival form, for devices such as the lobed trap leaves of Dionaea.
