Carnivorous Plants

By Agrihortico

Carnivorous plants are those plants that depend on insects and small animals for their nitrogen supply and proteins (inorganic nutrition). They derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and digesting small animals and insects by means of specially modified plant organs or trapping mechanisms. Today, there are over 600 known species of carnivorous plants in the world and most of them are herbaceous perennials that live in nutrient-poor soils.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Agrihortico
• Release date: Nov 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463765647

Agrihortico

AGRIHORTICO is committed for the “Empowerment of Food and Agriculture Sector.” You can avail a wealth of information on “Food & Agriculture” and “Gardening & Horticulture” topics. We regularly publish top quality, extensively researched materials. You may purchase our eBooks which are copyright protected and are one of the best in the Food & Agriculture industry.

Book preview

Carnivorous Plants

AGRIHORTICO

Copyright © 2019 AGRIHORTICO

All rights reserved.

www.agrihortico.com

table of contents

Carnivorous Plants

Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Plants

Carnivorous Plants: An Introduction

Prey-Trapping Mechanism

Major Carnivorous Plant Families

Aldrovanda

Utricularia or Bladderworts

Pinguicula or Butterwort

Byblis or Rainbow Plant

Cephalotus

Darlingtonia

Drosera or Sundew

Heliamphora

Nepenthes

Sarracenia

Dionaea or Venus Fly Trap

Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Plants

Broadly speaking, a plant is a multicellular photosynthetic eukaryotic life-form that grows in permanent site absorbing water and nutrients from its growing media through a well-developed root system for its growth and development. All plants are members of the Plant Kingdom (Kingdom Plantae). There are different types of plants: small and big, seed-bearing and non-seed bearing, flowering and non-flowering, aquatic and terrestrial, epiphytic and lithophytic, parasitic and saprophytic, and so on.

It is believed that there are millions of plant species in existence on this planet Earth. However, approximately 4 lakhs species of plants are known to science till date. Out of these plants, about 95% are vascular, flowering and seed-bearing plants, those plants that we see around us every day. Rest 5% comprises of plants that are rare and are less known to the world.

Classification of Plants: Plants may be grouped into different categories based on their uses, functional characteristics, economic importance etc. One major classification that is based on the nutritional aspects of the plants is ‘autotrophic’ and ‘heterotrophic.’

Greek word ‘auto’ means ‘self’, ‘hetero’ means ‘different’ and ‘trophic’ means ‘relating to nutrition’. Autotrophic plants are those plants that are capable of self synthesising their own food by using light energy. Almost all green plants with chlorophyll pigments are considered as autotrophic plants.

Heterotrophic plants are different from autotrophs in the fact that they are unable to produce their own foods and depend on other plants for their food and nutrition. Examples of heterotrophic plants are parasitic plants and saprophytic plants.

Autotrophs are food producers while heterotrophs are consumers. There are some plants that exhibit both autotrophic and heterotrophic characteristics. For example: carnivorous or insectivorous plants.

Carnivorous plants are very interesting because of their habit of carnivory and