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A pitcher plant in flower
growing on a road cut in Palau

A carnivorous plant is a plant that derives some or most of its nutrients (but not energy) by trapping and consuming animals, especially insects. Carnivorous plants usually grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs and rock outcroppings.

Types of carnivorous plants:

Pitcher plants

Sarracenia, (North American trumpet pitchers)
Nepenthes, (tropical pitchers or monkey-cups)
Darlingtonia, (cobra plant)
Heliamphora, (sun or marsh pitchers)
Cephalotus, (Albany pitcher plant)
Brocchinia reducta, (a terrestrial bromeliad)

Flypapers

Drosera, ( sundewSundews are members of the genus Drosera consisting of about 90 species of carnivorous plants. Examples of the sundew family can be found on every continent but Antarctica; they are specially abundant in South Africa and Australia. They can be found in mos)
DrosophyllumDrosophyllum is a genus of carnivorous plants containing the single species Drosophyllum lusitanicum or dewy pine. Drosophyllum is very similar to the closely related genus Drosera (sundews), and to the rather more distantly related Byblis (rainbow plants, (Portuguese dewy pine)
PinguiculaSee text The genus Pinguicula or butterworts is a group of 79 carnivorous plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. It operates by luring insects onto the sticky surfaces of its leaves, which retain the prey and suffocate it with mucilage. The edges of the l, ( butterworts)
TriphyophyllumTriphyophyllum is a monotypic genus, containing the single species Triphyophyllum peltatum''. This is a tropical liana, with a three-stage lifecycle, each with a different shaped leaf, as indicated by its Latin name. In the first stage, Triphyophyllum pel, (a tropicalThe tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. This area lies approximately between 23. 5° N l liana)
Roridula , (a non-carnivorous plant that looks carnivorous)
Byblis

Bladder and corkscrew traps

Utricularia, ( bladderworts)
Polypompholyx, (fairy aprons or pink petticoats)
Genlisea, (corkscrew plant)

Charles Darwin

A fanciful carnivorous plant with an insatiable appetite was the central theme of the comedic play, Little Shop of Horrors, made from a more serious 1960s movie of the same name.
The triffids presented in John Wyndham's book The Day of the Triffids are plants which can uproot themselves, move, and can kill with a poisonous, whip-like tail. The book leaves open the question of whether the triffids are intelligent.
The film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a campy movie about tomatoes that for some reason eat people. It is an intentional spoof on 50s monster movies.
A large floral plant consumed a young woman in Madagascar in 1878, as witnessed by Dr Carl Liche , or so he reported in the September 26 1920 issue of The American Weekly . The woman was supposed to have been a member of the Mkodos , a little known but cruel tribe. The woman was pictured in an accompanying artwork. In 1925 the same paper offered another carnivorous plant story, of a tree species on Mindanao, in the Philippines.

2 External links

The Carnivorous Plant FAQ
Carnivorous plant discussion forum
Carnivorous Plant Database
International Carnivorous Plant Society, provides an extensive FAQ and links to the Carnivorous Plant Web Ring.
Insectivorous Plants, by Charles Darwin

Plants

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1 Carnivorous plants in fiction

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