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These plants are specialised in trapping insects and are popularly known as insectivorous plants.
They are very different from normal plants in their mode of nutrition. They, however, never prey upon humans or large animals as often depicted in fiction.
Insectivorous plants can broadly be divided into active and passive types based on their method of trapping their prey.
♤ The active ones can close their leaf traps the moment insects land on them.
♤ The passive plants have a ‘pitfall’ mechanism, having some kind of jar or pitcher-like structure into which the insect slips and falls, to eventually be digested.
The insectivorous plants often have several attractions such as brilliant colours, sweet secretions and other curios to lure their innocent victims.
Why do they hunt despite having normal roots and photosynthetic leaves?
These plants are usually associated with rain-washed, nutrient-poor soils, or wet and acidic areas that are ill- drained. Such wetlands are acidic due to anaerobic conditions, which cause partial decomposition of organic matter releasing acidic compounds into the surroundings. As a result, most microorganisms necessary for complete decomposition of organic matter cannot survive in such poorly oxygenated conditions.
Normal plants find it difficult to survive in such nutrient poor habitats. The hunter plants are successful in such places because they supplement their photosynthetic food production by trapping insects and digesting their nitrogen rich bodies.