The Pitcher Plant: Nature’s Macabre Little Killer Plant
Learn some facts about this exotic plant that drowns its victims.
The poor pitcher plant grows in extremely acidic or deficient soil that doesn’t have enough nutrients for it to grow. The solution? It kills and digests helpless creatures.
Monkey Cup
Most pitcher plant prey are insects, maybe an occasional tree frog, but a recently discovered giant species, Nepenthe Attenboroughii, also has rodents and birds on the menu.
Hanging Pitcher Plmoants
The Pitcher Plant uses visual lures and scent glands that smell like nectar to fool bugs into coming closer. The sides are slippery and steep, so they end up falling into a Pitfall Trap where they drown.
Sarracenia Leucophylla Flower
The pools inside the Pitcher Plant are called phytotelmata. The plant secrets enzymes to dissolve the bodies of the insects. Many Pitcher Plants have tiny little ecosystems inside these little bodies of liquid are miniature insects that also eat the drowned bugs and the Pitcher Plant absorbs the waste.
Purple Pitcher Plant
Sarraceniopus Gibsoni, a mite found only in the Purple Pitcher Plant
Wyeomyia Smithii a mosquito whose life cycle is spent nearly entirely in the Purple Pitcher plant.
Nepenthes beccariana from Sibolga, Sumatra.
California Cobra Lily, below, has false exits and a forked tongue that helpfully assists ants and other crawling insects inside.
The hinged lids of many Pitcher Plants are meant to make it more difficult for flying insects to escape.
Albany Pitcher Plant
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2 Responses to “The Pitcher Plant: Nature’s Macabre Little Killer Plant”
On October 30, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Great post indeed.
I was amazed to learn about these plants in my school. I thought it to be a fairy-tale.
Now, when i see the Pictures of the Pitchers, my hair stands straight. How amazing is the nature..truely.
Recently I found few species of these pitcher plants in Kerala (south India).
Next time i will send the pictures.
On November 10, 2009 at 1:13 pm
picher plants have such a variety of colors and shapes, but i’ve always been fascinated about their strategies for caching food
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