Carnivorous plants in the botanical gardens

From the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog:

Carnivorous plants in the botanical gardens Linking: 15 Comments: 7

Date: 8/19/05 at 2:39PM

Mood: Looking Playing: Fleur carnivore

Today in the botanical gardens.

Carnivorous plants exhibition.

The first plant I see is Cape sundew, from South Africa.

Its Drosera relatives grow on all continents, except for Antarctic or Arctic regions.

Also various species in The Netherlands.

Usually, smaller species eat somewhat smaller prey.

Drosera regia, the biggest species, is also from South Africa.

I ask about evolution of carnivorous plants.

Not many fossils are known, and a recent find is two and a half million years old, so recent in evolutionary terms.

After finishing the original version of this entry, the Carnivora society was so kind to send me an e-mail.

It mentioned the recent find of an early Cretaceous carnivorous plant fossil, so over one hundred million years old. Apparently, related to the Venus flytrap of our times.

Its name is Archaeamphora longicervia.

The e-mail also contained a reference on another early Cretaceous plant: Ji, Q., H. Li, L. M. Bowe, Y. Liu, & D. W. Taylor, 2004, Early Cretaceous Archaefructus eoflora sp. nov. with bisexual flowers from Beipiao, western Liaoning, China. Acta Geologica Sinica 78: 883-896.

Some carnivorous plants live in water. Like greater bladderwort.

They eat monocellular organisms; nothing bigger than small crustaceans. A mosquito larva is too big for them.

Carnivorous plants are in various unrelated plant families. They have only feeding habits in common.

The biggest prey is eaten by plants of the South East Asian tropical Nepenthes family.

They eat frogs and small lizards. Mice may be, or may be not, just big enough to be able to escape.

In the botanical gardens are many Nepenthes species. In two hothouses: one for lowland species; one, somewhat cooler, for highland species.

The well known Venus flytraps from the USA eat insects, isopods, spiders.

Not bigger than that. So the picture here is, if taken literally, fictional.

Like the roles of many carnivorous plants in movies.