Name, description and photo of the plant that eats flies

Flies - creatures annoying and not amenable to any tricks. The constant use of chemicals to kill these insects is not very beneficial for humans and is harmful to the environment. Sometimes a plant that eats flies can be used to protect against pests. These species of flowering developed independently of each other, adapted to eat living organisms due to the poverty of soils in the places of growth. Basically, these are marshy lowlands, where trace elements are almost absent in the soil.

Types of Flycatchers

In total, there are about 630 species of predatory plants belonging to 19 genera in the world. In Russia, 18 species of 2 families grow: Rosyankovy and Bubble.

Pemphigus carnivores are all, but they are not of practical interest. At home, it is very difficult to breed them, as these are aquatic plants devoid of roots. On the surface of the water they are held by a large number of trapping bubbles located in the leaves. The insect, getting inside the bubble, can no longer get out of there.

Much more interesting are Rosyankovye. These are land plants, which, if desired, can be bred at home. The name of the Rosyankov family plants comes from their method of catching insects.

On a note!

Large sundew is able to catch not only a flybut even a dragonfly.

What do sundews look like

These are perennials with a tuber-like thickened root. Sundews are found on almost all types of soils:

• sandstones;
• swamps;
• in the mountains.

Flowers of these plants are inconspicuous, and long thin hairs are on the leaves. At the tips of the hairs, small droplets of sweet liquid stand out, similar to dropping dew. Hence the common name "sundew."

With sweet syrup, the plant attracts flies and male mosquitoes that sit on leaves to eat. Once the fly touches the hairs, it will stick to the sheet. Syrup is not only sweet, but also viscous. The plant begins to slowly twist the leaf around the fly. After complete folding, the leaf remains in this position until the plant completely digests the production.

In Russia, several species of sundews are common, including the type species.

Round-billed sundew

A perennial flower that eats flies. A typical species that gave the name to the entire genus of sundews. Distributed throughout the Eurasian continent. Prefers marshes, can grow on peatlands and wet sands.

The round-leaved sundew can safely be called a long-liver - it lives for several decades. But due to poor nutrition, the sundew grows very slowly and does not grow large.

Leaves grow from a basal rosette and are located on the ground. On small round leafy plates there are glandular hairs 4-5 mm long. These hairs produce droplets of dew-like fluid.

The sundew, round-leaved, feeds not only on flies. When insects touch a sensitive hair, the leaf folds and the hairs dig into the invertebrate cover.

Interesting!

Insects are eaten by the very droplets of liquid that are actually a digestive enzyme.

English Dewdrop

Perennial plant, common not only in Eurasia, but also in North America. In some areas of Russia is listed in the Red Book.

This is another flower that eats flies. Unlike the sundew, the English diet is based on flying invertebrates up to dragonflies. The leaves of the English sundew are directed upwards. The length of the leaf blade is 1.5-3 cm. The width is 5 cm. The leaflets are covered with red glandular hairs. When a fly is caught, a sheet of English sundew wraps around an insect. How a flower that eats a fly in the midst of a process looks like in the photo, can be seen below.

Venus flytrap

This native of the North American continent is often bred at home as an ornamental plant.

Interesting!

The Latin name of the flower muscipula translates as "mousetrap." It is believed that this was the mistake of the botanist who described the plant. But there is no confirmation of this hypothesis. The name "Venus" is given in honor of the goddess of love.

This is a herbaceous plant with 4-7 leaves that grow from a basal rosette. The stem of the flower is bulbous. The length of the leaves is 4-7 cm and depends on the season. Longer leaves grow after flowering.

The leaves of the flytrap resemble flowers. They are oval and red. But this is only a device for luring invertebrates.

The name "flytrap" is also not true, as is the "mousetrap." Venus flytrap does not apply to flowers that catch flies. These dipterans are random prey, occupying only 5% of the diet of a predatory plant. The bulk of the diet of this plant is made up of invertebrates crawling on the ground. One third of them are ants.

Even a flytrap leaf looks like a trap. It is almost smooth inside and has sensitive hairs along the edges. If the hairs are disturbed at least 2 times at intervals of no more than 20 seconds, the sheet will begin to close the edges.

The digestion process takes an average of 10 days. Then the sheet opens, “throws out” an empty chitinous shell and expects the next production. During the life of one leaf trap, an average of 3 insects fall into it.

On a note!

The habitat of the venus flytrap in the homeland is swamps. This flower can easily live on a windowsill or in a garden if it has a sufficiently moist earthen lump. Drying out for the flycatcher is harmful.

Pitchers

Plants, some leaves of which look like bright flowers of a pitcher-shaped form. But even these plants cannot be said to use trap flowers. As traps they also have tubular leaves, at the bottom of which fluid accumulates. Flies fly on the bait and drown in it. Since in fact it is a concentrated digestive enzyme.

Pitchers are painted in various bright colors, while real flowers of pitchers are small and inconspicuous.

Nepentes

The inhabitant of humid tropical regions. The length of nepentes, depending on their species, is 2.5–50 cm. The largest can catch and digest a small mammal. Or enter into an symbiotic relationship with the animal. Large Nepenthes lowii, in addition to insects, uses litter of mountain blunts as a source of organic matter. And the animal feasts on nectar.

Interesting!

For the sake of convenience, blunt the entire design of the pitcher sheet is reinforced to support the extra weight.

Sarracenia

The family consists of 10 species. the fly trap is a twisted funnel-shaped leaf growing from the root. The plant is a native of North America. Sarracenia was grown as a houseplant in pre-revolutionary Russia. She grows well in pots.

Breeders have already bred new cultivated varieties of sarracenia that can be grown indoors. With good care, flowering sarracenia can be achieved.

Stapelia

A plant that is mistakenly considered a cactus. It blooms in large dark red flowers, exuding the smell of rotten meat.But you can’t use it to destroy flies, except to thin their offspring.

On a note!

Cacti that eat flies in nature do not exist.

The purpose of the slipway is to attract pollinating flies, and not to catch insects. Stapelia attracts to itself meat flies. Necrophages, arriving at the smell of carrion, try to lay eggs in a flower. In the process of reproduction they get dirty in the pollen of a flower and transfer it to the next slipway. When breeding stapelia as a houseplant, pollen is wasted, just like eggs flies, since the flower of stapelia lives about a day, after which it dies. Larvae that do not have time to hatch die with it.