Carnivorous Plants

If you want to add a unique touch to your garden, carnivorous plants are bound to get attention. From the common Venus Flytrap to the Cobra plant, these exotics serve several purposes. In areas that have high populations of bugs, they can lowers the amount of flies or other insects that bother you. While the benefit is strictly related to the size and type of carnivorous plants that you own, these plants can provide a small level of relief while providing entertainment to adults and children alike.

Basically there are five different types of carnivorous plants for you to consider. The most common type, is the Venus Flytrap found in cultivated varieties of the Dionaea muscipula family. Snap traps rely on a mouth that close in around its pray, where the plant will eat whatever it catches.

Once an insect is captured, the plant closes its trap tightly around the meal and bathes it in digestive juices that dissolve the insect’s soft, inner parts. Digestion takes five to 12 days, after which the trap reopens, then the insect’s exoskeleton blows away in the wind or is washed away by rain.

These plants range from colorful to bland, and do not have moving parts like their snap trap counterparts.

Flypaper traps are among some of the coolest carnivorous plants. These plants secrete a glue which traps and breaks down insects for nourishment. These carnivorous plants should be treated with caution in the home, as the secretions can cause agitation to the skin.

The only carnivorous plant with a true "trapdoor" is the remarkable bladderwort. These plants function through the osmosis of water to create a suction within the body of the plant. This causes the walls to squeeze inward and explains their slightly concave appearance. Bladderworts are more commonly found underwater than above ground, which is another distinct characteristic from other carnivorous plants.

Another favorite carnivorous plant are the lobster-pot traps, and they come with a chamber that is easy to enter, and whose exit is either difficult to find or obstructed by inward-pointing bristles.

Corkscrew plants are interesting, in that, the inside of the plant mouth is filled with downward pointing obstructions, used to prevent it’s prey from escaping it’s grasp.

If you do not wish to have a true carnivorous plant in your garden, but would like something with similar characteristics, there are several related species you may want to consider. These plants include the Brocchinia Roridula and members of the Martyniaceae species. These plants lack one of the three required aspects, which is to attract, kill and digest prey, to be classified as a true carnivorous plant.

Carnivorous plants should be placed where young children and babies cannot reach them. Even though they are considered relatively harmless to humans, the type of digestive enzymes they produce to break down their captured prey, should be avoided.