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Spooky Plants for Halloween |
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Halloween
is just around the corner, which provides a good excuse
to explore the world of weird and scary plants. These
particular plants often exist in harsh environments or
require specific pollinators. They rely on their strange
attributes for survival.
Carnivorous plants are perhaps the most gruesomely fascinating
to people, if the fact that there are more than 30 carnivorous
plant societies around the world is anything to go by.
Carnivorous plants "eat" insects and small
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An
example of a pitcher plant (Sarracenia sp.).
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organisms
to obtain nutrients, such as nitrogen, that they cannot
draw from the soil in their environment, which is often
boggy.
And they have developed several cunning ways to catch
and consume their prey. For example, sundews (Drosera
sp.) are one of several kinds of "sticky-flypaper"
plants. At the ends of long tentacles on their leaves
are glands that hold nectar, digestive juices and glue-like
substances. Insects attracted to the nectar land on the
tentacles, are trapped by the glue and are dispatched
with the digestive enzymes.
Other plants have built-in passive traps. As suggested
by its name, the leaves of the North American pitcher
plant (Sarracenia sp.) form a pitcher-like shape.
Insects can crawl in, but slippery sides and downward-facing
hairs prevent them from crawling out. The pitcher is also
too narrow for flying insects to escape. Once marooned
at the bottom of the pitcher, prey is digested in a fluid
containing enzymes. |
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Other Articles from this Issue |
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