carnivorous plant
- Sometimes called:
- insectivorous plant
- Key People:
- Charles Darwin
carnivorous plant, any plant especially adapted for capturing and digesting insects and other animals by means of ingenious pitfalls and traps. Carnivory in plants has evolved independently about six times across several families and orders. The more than 600 known species of carnivorous plants constitute a very diverse group, in some cases having little more in common than their carnivorous habit.
Trap types and digestion
The conspicuous trapping mechanism, which is always a modified leaf, draws special attention to these plants. A variety of trapping mechanisms exist and are designated as active or passive based on whether they move to capture prey. Pitfall traps, such as those found in pitcher plants, are among the most common types of traps and employ a hollow, lidded leaf filled with liquid to passively collect and digest prey. Flypaper traps can be active or passive and rely on sticky mucilage, either directly on the leaf surface (butterworts) or on gland-tipped hairs (sundews), to capture prey. Snap traps, such as those of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), use rapid leaf movements to actively ensnare insects. Bladder traps are only found in bladderwort plants (genus Utricularia) and actively suck in small organisms using a partial vacuum. Lobster-pot traps, found predominantly in corkscrew plants (genus Genlisea), employ downward-pointing hairs to force prey deeper into the trap.
Using enzymes or bacteria, carnivorous plants digest their prey through a process of chemical breakdown analogous to digestion in animals. The end products, particularly nitrogenous compounds and salts, are absorbed by the plants to enable their survival under otherwise marginal or hostile environmental conditions. Most carnivorous species are green plants that manufacture food by photosynthesis from the raw materials of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide in the presence of chlorophyll. The carnivorous habit augments the diet derived from the poor soil of their environment.
Ecology
Whether aquatic or terrestrial, carnivorous plants have a basically similar ecology. Species of two or three genera (e.g., Sarracenia, Drosera, and Pinguicula) are often found growing almost side by side. The majority are most likely to be found in damp heaths, bogs, swamps, and muddy or sandy shores where water is at least seasonally abundant and where nitrogenous materials are often scarce or unavailable because of acid or other unfavorable soil conditions. Drosophyllum lusitanicum seems to be the one exception; it grows on dry, gravelly hills of Portugal and Morocco.
On the whole, carnivorous plants are relatively small, but size variation is enormous even within the same genus. The majority are herbaceous perennials less than 30 cm (1 foot) high, often only 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches). Some species of Nepenthes, however, become large shrubby vines. Drosera species vary from a few centimeters to 1 meter (3 feet) or more in height (D. gigantea); the smallest are often hidden among the moss of a sphagnum bog.
Major families
The largest carnivorous plant family, Lentibulariaceae (order Lamiales), is marked by bilaterally symmetrical flowers with fused petals and only two anthers. This family has a fairly cosmopolitan distribution and comprises more than 300 species in three genera: the bladderworts (Utricularia, about 220 species), the butterworts (Pinguicula, about 120 species), and the corkscrew plants (Genlisea, about 22 species). Employing a variety of trapping mechanisms, members of that family are predominantly herbs of wet or aquatic habitats and prey on insects and other invertebrates.
The family Droseraceae (order Caryophyllales) comprises three genera and about 154 species, nearly all of which are sundews (genus Drosera). The aquatic genus Aldrovanda contains only one species, the waterwheel plant (A. vesiculosa), which is sometimes grown in aquaria as a curiosity. Similarly, the genus Dionaea consists of only the Venus flytrap (D. muscipula), well known for its quick-acting snap trap and commonly sold as a novelty. Once classified within Droseraceae, the Portuguese sundew (Drosophyllum lusitanicum) is now placed within its own family, Drosophyllaceae (order Caryophyllales), of which it is the only species.
Despite their similar trapping mechanisms, pitcher plants can be found in five genera across three families. The species of New World pitcher plants are placed in the family Sarraceniaceae (order Ericales). About 10 of the 34 species belong to the widely known and much-studied genus Sarracenia, of eastern North America. The sun pitchers, also known as marsh pitcher plants (genus Heliamphora), are native to a limited region in South America and consist of about 23 species. The cobra plant (Darlingtonia californica) is the only member of its genus and is indigenous to northern California and southern Oregon. The approximately 140 species of Old World pitcher plants constitute the only genus of the family Nepenthaceae, Nepenthes (order Caryophyllales). Mostly native to Madagascar, Southeast Asia, and Australasia, many members of Nepenthaceae are climbing plants, and some live as epiphytes in trees. The pitcher plant family Cephalotaceae (order Oxalidales) consists of only the Western Australian pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis).
Known as rainbow plants, the family Byblidaceae (order Lamiales) contains a single genus (Byblis) of about seven carnivorous species native to Australia and New Guinea. Those herbs have narrow leaves that are densely covered with glandular hairs that serve as flypaper traps to absorb nutrients from insects.
The pineapple family (Bromeliaceae, order Poales) has at least three carnivorous species: Brocchinia reducta, B. hectioides, and Catopsis berteroniana. Those species have urnlike pitfall traps formed by the tightly packed leaf bases that are characteristic of the family. They are not known to produce digestive enzymes and instead rely on bacteria to break down their prey.