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Beauty with a bite: The weird world of carnivorous plants

These eye-catching plants are beautiful but deadly.

Many of us will be familiar with the Venus flytrap; a plant with spiky green and red leaves that snap shut when an insect has the misfortune of landing on it. But there’s much more to the carnivorous plant world. Exotic plant expert David Durie showed the Beechgrove team around his collection.

“A carnivorous plant is essentially any plant which is able to trap and digest insects," explained David. "Some will just trap them so these are semi-carniverous.”

Some of the plants, normally found in areas of the world such as the Philippines and the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, are kept in a greenhouse where the humid and wet atmosphere mimics their home environment.

One of these is the tall trumpet-like plant, Sarracenia, which produces its own digestive enzymes. David explains that the plant's nectar gland attracts the insect which will then slip and fall into the juices below. "It's a sticky end," he admits.

There is debate around the smell of the Sarracenia's flowers. "Some people say that they smell of urine," says David. "Other people say that they smell of pancakes. I think they look nice and smell ... interesting."

A variety that doesn't need to be kept inside is the Pinguicula. David explains: "What happens with these is they have very sticky leaves and so as small insects travel across, they [get] stuck on the glue on the leaves, and then the leaf dips and forms a pool of enzymes which breaks down the insect and then it absorbs the nutrients from that."

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