“Beware of the predatory potatoes” could be the new warning sign at the front gate.
Scientists now believe potatoes and petunias – yes, petunias, the horned-shaped, odoriferous flowers – may be carnivorous plants.
In fact, carnivores may be widespread amongst the plant community.
Everybody knows about the Venus flytrap, indigenous to the North Carolina coast, that captures insects who deign to enter its jaw/leaves.
Pitcher plants, also on the coast, draw its victims down a slippery pit to oblivion.
Once ensnared, the prey is added to a stewpot of acids and enzymes that renders it a quivering puddle of putrefaction.
Don’t confuse these carnivorous plants with “Audrey Jr.,” the maneating plant in “Little Shop of Horrors.” That was a figment of someone’s vivid imagination.
On the other hand, researchers believe that widespread carnivore behavior in plants went unnoticed for so long because of the subtle manner used to entice creepy-crawlies.
According to a paper in the Dec. 4, 2009, issue of the “Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society,” scientists are taking a closer look at the carnivorous attributes of plants. Botanist Mark Chase of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, England, pulled no punches when he said, “We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think.
“What plants are doing is much more sophisticated that we ever imagined. Although animals are eating plants, plants are also eating animals. It’s not just a one-way street.”
Scientists have been aware of certain less-than-subtle carnivorous plants for years.
For instance, the largest pitcher plant species, Nepenthes rajah, was discovered in 1858 in the Philippines.
Some of the plants have been known to have dined on lizards, frogs and rats.
But back to potatoes and petunias.
Both have sticky hairs that trap insects, ditto with some species of campion flowers that have the common name, catchfly.
My question is, if potatoes eat insects, why don’t they devour potato beetles?
Years ago I gave up growing potatoes because the beetles left the leaves looking like grandma’s wedding dress after 50 years of moth attacks.
Research on carnivorous plants has been given a shot in the arm by the use of dosing insects with radioactive nutrients.
Scientists can then track the molecules to see if plants are absorbing them.
One of the more subtle methods of plant carnivorism is the absorption of decaying animal corpses through the root systems.
That would include nearly all plants, Chase said.
But you have to admit, the really sexy plants are those that actually kill their prey. Those are the ones you want for your home garden.
Although experts say it’s not likely that plants could be cultivated as mouse traps, it wouldn’t hurt to have a healthy Nepenthes rajah or two just outside the door.
You’d want to make sure the pets didn’t get too near the sticky flowers, though.
It’d be kind of a downer to find little “Precious” drowned inside one of your specimens.
Bill collectors, on the other hand ...
Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, thinks there may be petunias in his future.
