2. Sundews (a.k.a Drosera)

3. Habitat Sundews generally grow in seasonally moist or more rarely constantly wet habitats with acidic soils and high levels of sunlight. Common habitats include bogs, fens, swamps, marshes, the tepuiss of Venezuela, the wallums of coastal Australia, the Fynbos of South Africa, and moist streambanks. Many species grow in association with sphagnum moss, which absorbs much of the soil's nutrient supply and also acidifies the soil, making nutrients less available to plant life. This allows sundews, which don't rely on soil-bound nutrients, to flourish where more dominating vegetation would usually outcompete them.

4. How Does A Sundew Catch it’s Prey? Sundews have leaves which are covered in long hairs and each hair ends in a droplet of sticky fluid which causes insects to stick to the leaf. The leaf, whatever shape, is covered in tiny hairs on the dorsal side. Each of these hairs ends in a tiny, bulbous gland. These glands secrete a viscous mucilage that contains sweet smelling sugar, which acts as a lure. When prey discovers the lure, they fly (or less often, crawl) onto the leaf, becoming ensnared in the liquid. Often, ground dwelling insects have legs powerful enough to escape, but flying insects are not built strong enough. Their wings may become ensnared as well. Limbs may be torn off in the struggle, etc. The mucilage enters the insects breathing holes and suffocates it, killing it. During the struggle, the tentacles curl around toward the center of the leaf, through a complex water pressure system inside the tentacles, impeding the preys escape. In some species, this water pressure system is included in the entire leaf, so the leaf may start to curl as well.

5. Roots of Sundews The root system of most Drosera is only weakly developed. It serves mainly to absorb water and to anchor the plant to the ground; the roots are relatively useless when it comes to nutrient uptake. A few South African species use their roots for water and food storage. Some species have wiry root systems that remain during frosts if the stem dies. Some Australian species form underground corms for this purpose, which also serve to allow the plants to survive dry summers.

6. Different Types of Sundews

7. Pitcher Plant By: Minahil Masroor

8. Introduction: Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey- trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. It has been widely assumed that the various sorts of pitfall trap evolved from rolled leaves, with selection pressure favouring more deeply cupped leaves over evolutionary time. However, some pitcher plant genera (such as Nepenthes) are placed withinclades consisting mostly of flypaper traps: this indicates that this view may be too simplistic, and some pitchers may have evolved from the common ancestors of today's flypaper traps by loss of mucilage.carnivorous plantsliquidselectionevolutionarygeneraNepenthescladesflypaper trapsmucilage

9. Types of pitcher plants: The families Nepenthaceae and Sarraceniaceae are the best-known and largest groups of pitcher plants.NepenthaceaeSarraceniaceae The Nepenthaceae contains a single genus, Nepenthes, containing about 130 species and numerous hybrids and cultivars. In these Old World pitcher plants, the pitchers are borne at the end of tendrils that extend from the midrib of an otherwise unexceptional leaf. The plants themselves are often climbers, accessing the canopy of their habitats using the aforementioned tendrils, although others are found on the ground in forest clearings, or as epiphytes on trees.genusNepenthesOld Worldtendrilsmidribcanopyhabitatsepiphytes

10. Distribution : In contrast, the New World pitcher plants (Sarraceniaceae), which comprise three genera, are ground-dwelling herbs whose pitchers arise from a horizontal rhizome. In this family, the entire leaf forms the pitcher, whereas in the Nepenthaceae, the pitcher arises from the terminal portion of the leaf. The species of Heliamphora, which are popularly known as marsh pitchers (or erroneously as sun pitchers), have a simple rolled-leaf pitcher, at the tip of which is a spoon-like structure that secretes nectar. They are restricted to areas of high rainfall in South America. TheNorth American genus Sarracenia are the trumpet pitchers, which have a more complex trap than Heliamphora, with an operculum, which prevents excess accumulation of rainwater in most of the species. The single species in the Californian genus Darlingtonia is popularly known as the cobra plant, due to its possession of an inflated "lid" with elegant false-exits, and a forked "tongue", which serves to ferry ants and other prey to the entrance of the pitcher. The species in the genus Sarracenia readily hybridise, making their classification a complex matter.New WorldrhizomeHeliamphoraSouth AmericaNorth AmericanSarraceniaoperculumCalifornianDarlingtonia

11. Bibliography Sundews: 1. Images were taken from Google.com 2. Information was taken from wikipedia.com Pitcher Plant : 1. Wikipedia 2.google 3.Darwin Online Butterwort: 1.Google 2. wikipedia