![]() This is the flytrap. You probably know who he is, because he's the most famous plant of them all. It's carnivorous. Not many plants eat things other than sunlight (though you'll see a few in the list below). And even fewer (about four species) are capable of rapid movement. This makes the Venus Flytrap seem like, I don't know, it might be from another planet or something. Actually it’s from boggy areas of North and South Carolina, where the soil is poor in nutrients. It craves a high-nitrogen snack once in a while. You might wonder how the trap is triggered. Well, with trigger hairs. When two hairs are touched within 20 seconds of each other, or if a single hair is touched twice, the trap snaps shut. Healthier Venus Flytraps close quicker. Scientists are unsure about the mechanism; it has to do with neighboring cells sending chemical messages to each other. The jaw-looking things act like interlocking fingers, or to the insect inside, prison bars. They do their best to restrain the insect from escaping. Then the rest is done with digestive juices. ![]() This is the rafflesia.Rafflesia is another "corpse flower" because of its stench (I promise this is the last plant here that smells like a corpse). It's unique in that it is the world’s largest single flower. It is also wacky because it has no stems, leaves, or roots, though it does seem to be a plant of some kind. Some think it’s related to fungi. The Kew Botanical Gardens website puts it in Class Equisetopsia, related to horsetails, but Wikipedia puts in Malphigiales (a large category including willows and flaxes). Want to find one so you can plant it in your backyard? Me too. However these are extremely hard to find. They live most of their lives as inconspicuous strands of tissue, parasitic on Tetrastigma vines in tropical rainforests, until the strands develop a little inconspicuous bud, which for a few brief days explosively transforms into the thing above. ![]() This is the elelphant-foot yam. Guess who this cute little guy is related to? Yep, the Corpse Flower. Not only are they related, they also share many characteristics. For example this guy also smells like a corpse. These elephant-foot yams vary in color, as well. Some are pure white. The Elephant-Foot Yam might have the edge on the Corpse Flower in wackiness because it is edible. In one Southeast Asian culture they are grown as a delicacy, while in another they are a last-resort food source. ![]() This is the Corpse Flower. The Corpse Flower smells strongly like a rotting corpse, and it looks like it belongs in the movie Avatar. I would imagine that the smell helps prevent it from being eaten, but despite this the plant is still very rare; according to the IUCN it’s officially “threatened." It comes from the forests of Sumatra. It's not actually one big flower; it’s thousands upon thousands of little male and female flowers. These exude oils, while the center collects heat. The heat plus the oils create the smell that attracts the beetles that pollinate the flower. In case you were wondering, a mature plant can weigh 200 pounds. |
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