Rat-eating plant discovered in Cape York

[modest]

Mice call them privy plants ;)

...I wonder if he is defecating in it?...

 

But, Michael, that's why they call it the "privy plant" :confused:

 

~modest

[lemit]

I'm fascinated by the cloth-like plant surface. I know Australia has different species than the rest of the world. I don't think the northern hemisphere has anything like that, but I haven't studied plant species that carefully.

 

Is that fuzziness common among carnivorous plants? The plant in the picture seems to have eaten some humans, and I can imagine that a soft, fuzzy surface would be helpful in attracting human prey.

 

Just curious.

 

--lemit

[Michaelangelica]

 

Is that fuzziness common among carnivorous plants? The plant in the picture seems to have eaten some humans, and I can imagine that a soft, fuzzy surface would be helpful in attracting human prey.

 

Just curious.

 

--lemit

What!!!????:confused:;)

Go and take your pills!

[Michaelangelica]

Moontanman

Only just 'on topic', but i thought this recent article would interest you

 

see also P. 41

Hort Journal Australia - Online Viewer

and front cover photo.

[Michaelangelica]

Rat-eating plant discovered in Philippines

By Chris Irvine

Published: 11:52AM BST 17 Aug 2009

A carnivorous pitcher plant that eats rats and insects has been discovered in the Philippines and named after Sir David Attenborough.

The plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is believed to be the largest meat-eating shrub, dissolving rats with acid-like enzymes. . ."The plant produces spectacular traps which catch not only insects, but also rodents. It is remarkable that it remained undiscovered until the 21st century."

Rat-eating plant discovered in Philippines - Telegraph

Cute that it is named Nepenthes attenboroughii

[Michaelangelica]

As I've mentioned here before, Charles Darwin once said that he cared “more about Drosera than the origin of all the species in the world”. Drosera is the scientific name for sundew, one of the animal-eating plants, and Darwin was writing to a colleague about his major work on carnivorous plants.

 

As it happens, Australia has more sundew species than anywhere else in the world – 100 of the 170 species. You can see some in the Connections Garden here at Mount Annan Botanic Garden [*these notes are from the third of four interviews from Mount Annan].

 

The sundews (Drosera) are called ‘active’ carnivorous plants because they respond to the victim, albeit slowly. The upper surface of the Sundew’s leaf is covered with sticky tentacles, looking a bit like a sea anemone. When an insect lands on the leaf, it gets glued to the leaf by a sticky fluid secreted from a small gland at the end of the tentacle.

 

When the insect struggles, the tentacles close around it. The tentacles release further chemicals to kill the insect and then enzymes to digest it. There are another carnivorous plants in Australia, most of them digesting small insects to get their food.

 

The most striking of these are the Pitcher Plants. They grow mostly in the tropics and we have only four species in Australia: three Nepenthes (there are more than 85 species in this genus, most of them in Asia), and the unrelated Albany Pitcher Plant (Cephalotus follicularis, the only species in this genus) from streams south-west Western Australia.

 

These plants have leaves that produce water carrying vases or pitchers at their ends. As you might have heard me mention before, the biggest pitchers in the world are up to 30 cm (a foot) long and hold around 2.5 litres of liquid. They can digest frogs, mice and even small rats, but would still mostly live on hapless insects.

 

Usually an insect is attracted by sweet nectar just inside the

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Talking Plants