Meat-Eating Plants.

Welcome to California Carnivores--where plants lure, trap, and eat anything they can catch flying or hopping by!

When Peter D'Amato's plants seem "hungry," he doesn't dip into a bag of fertilizer. The bugs buzzing around his greenhouse will do, thank you. D'Amato is co-owner of California Carnivores, a "Little Shop of Horrors" that grows carnivorous--that is, meat-eating--plants!

Nearly 600 species of these leafy meat-eaters grow in the wild around the world. D'Amato cultivates 500 bizarre and beautiful varieties. Among his collection, for example, you'll find the cobra lily. The meter-tall plant resembles a cobra with its hood spread and protruding "fangs" that cover its "mouth," luring prey with nectar. Once bugs fall inside, they drown--and are slowly digested. D'Amato also raises the most famous carnivorous plant of all, the Venus flytrap: when insects brush against the flytrap's "trigger hairs," the plant's "jaws" snap shut, trapping hapless insects inside.

D'Amato also grows butterworts, which secrete a sticky substance that acts like flypaper, gluing its victims in place as enzymes (proteins that aid body functions) digest the insect's soft tissues. And some of D'Amato's plants, like tropical pitcher plants, eat more than bugs. The blooms on these Asian jungle vines (which can grow up to tens of meters long) are known to feast on frogs, birds, or even small monkeys! "These plants not only look gory," says botanist Barry Meyers-Rice, a Nature Conservancy biologist, "they do gory stuff."

TROUBLED CARNIVORES

D'Amato's gory greenhouse, or indoor botanical garden, may be among the last places to see these crafty carnivores. Around the world the plants' natural wetland habitats have been systematically drained--to build communities, shopping malls, and farms. Almost 90 percent of carnivorous plants indigenous (native) to the U.S. have been wiped out because only 3 to 5 percent of their swampy habitat still remains, D'Amato explains.

Yet backyard gardens of bug-eating plants have now become the newest botanical craze, fueled in part by soaring Internet sales. Though many species are endangered and have been protected by law since the early 1980s, plant poachers still harvest wild plants illegally to sell to collectors. North Carolina--the Venus flytrap's only native habitat--now levies fines of up to $2,000 for poaching the plant!

To help preserve these wild wonders, D'Amato and business partner Marilee Maertz obtain their plants by trading with botanical gardens. They also grow new plants from seeds or leaf cuttings.

HAIR-RAISING HOBBY

The "seeds" of D'Amato's passion for carnivores were planted when he was 10 years old. While strolling a New Jersey marsh, he and a friend discovered plants coated with struggling insects. D'Amato brought home samples, but no one--not even his teacher--could identify them. So D'Amato hit the local library, where he learned his new pet plants were sundews and pitcher plants, both of which eat insects. He planted them in a moist, sunny area in his backyard to watch them bug out. "My parents were very supportive of my hobby," he says.

D'Amato soon discovered carnivores don't feast on creepy critters 24 hours a day. They make most of their own food the same way regular green plants do: They take in water and carbon dioxide, and use the sun's energy to make glucose (a type of sugar) in a process called photosynthesis.

But the swampy bogs where carnivores naturally grow lack important nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Insects and other animals are loaded with nitrogen, so the plants became adept as hunters--attracting, capturing, and digesting insects and other animals to get the nutrition they needed to survive.

In the late 1980s, D'Amato's college friend Maertz convinced him to start California Carnivores. Today, greenhouse visitors watch a dazzling array of meat-eating plants with active traps, which have moving parts. You might also see unwary insects get stuck in other plants' passive traps, like a pitcher plant's pool of digestive juice or the sundew's sticky "glue."

Though carnivorous plants aren't equipped with teeth that mash insects to bits, their cells secrete digestive fluids. "You can actually watch the plants digest," D'Amato says. "If you hold a Venus flytrap up to a light, you can see the insects dissolving inside," Maertz adds. "Pinch the trap and digestive juice oozes out." Yum.

The California Carnivores' plants "haven't eaten any people yet," Maertz jokes. "But if they grow big enough, they might!"

Venus Flytrap

SIZE: 12-25 cm (5-10 in) tall

HABITAT: North Carolina 

COMMON PREY: Flies; sometimes frogs and lizards

HOW IT LURES: A reddish interior and sweet nectar attract insects when leaves (lobes) are open.

HOW IT TRAPS: If a critter such as this gecko brushes against at least two hairs on a lobe, the lobes fold over, trapping the prey between their toothy prongs.

HOW IT DIGESTS: Digestive juices inside the lobes drown the prey and slowly dissolve its body tissues.

DIGESTION TIME: 8 to 10 days

Nepenthes Pitcher Plant

SIZE: 75-100 cm (30-40 in) tall; pitcher is about 30 cm (12 in) tall

HABITAT: Southeast Asia

COMMON PREY: Insects; sometimes small rodents, frogs, and birds

HOW IT LURES: Water collected inside the pitcher's "vessel" and sweet-scented nectar attract prey.

HOW IT TRAPS: Prey slides down slippery inner walls into a pool of digestive fluids.

HOW IT EATS: Digestive fluids liquefy and break down prey.

DIGESTION TIME: 1 to 2 weeks

Sundew 

SIZE: 15 cm-1 m (6 in-3 ft) tall

HABITAT: All continents, except Antarctica

COMMON PREY: Ants and other insects

HOW IT LURES: A reddish pigment and sweet odor lure insects.

HOW IT TRAPS: Sticky drops on a leaf's tentacles trap insects like this unlucky ant. Both the tentacles and leaf curl up around the insect.

HOW IT EATS: Plant cells secrete digestive and slowly absorb the insect's tissues.

DIGESTION TIME: 4 to 5 days

Greater Bladderwort 

SIZE: 1 m (3 ft) or longer, mostly underwater; traps are 1.5-5 mm (0.06-0.2 in) long.

HABITAT: Ponds, bogs, and swamps around the world

COMMON PREY: Water fleas, mosquito larvae, microorganisms (e.g., paramecia), and tadpoles 

HOW IT LURES: Plant gives off a faint odor that attracts insects.

HOW IT TRAPS: When prey brushes against hairs near tiny underwater traps (not shown), trap valves open and water rushes in, dragging in the prey.

HOW IT EATS: Digestive juices or bacteria living in the trap liquefy the prey so the plant can absorb its nutrients.

DIGESTION TIME: 15 minutes to 2 hours

RELATED ARTICLE: Do Plants FEEL?

Plants may not laugh or cry like you, but new research shows that in their own way plants may feel, see, smell, taste, and even hear. Some meat-eating plants like the Venus flytrap "feel" the presence of a buggy snack: if an insect brushes twice against "trigger" hairs on its leaves, the flytrap generates an electrical signal that snaps its leaves shut to imprison (and digest) the morsel.

No, plants don't wear shades, but plant tissues do contain proteins called phytochromes and cryptochromes that "see" the intensity and amount of light. Plants sense light direction so they know when to "wake up." That's important, since plants transform light energy into food through photosynthesis.

When a caterpillar devours a plant, the plant gives off chemical scents that warn neighbors to defend themselves. Then plants "sniff" this warning, and secrete either an insect repellent or a substance that summons insect predators to eat the caterpillar!

Hearing may also trigger responses by leafy greens. When biologist Mordecai Jaffe at Wake Forest University played various sounds for plants, the noise that matched the frequency of the human voice made plants grow faster and sprout more seeds than normal. So does talking to houseplants make them grow better? "You'd have to talk to them for days to see any effect," says Jaffe.