Dimdima
Online Children's Magazine from India
Dimdima
Online Children's Magazine from India
By Rani Iyer
If I told you that pitchers hold more than water, would you believe me? Maybe. If I told you these pitchers actually eat meat, would you believe me? No way! What if I tell you I am talking about the Pitcher plant? That might begin to make sense!
Growing in bogs, marshes, and water logged area, the pitcher plants are found in tropical and temperate regions of the world. Sarracenia purpurea, the temperate pitcher plant, is found growing in acidic bogs. The leaves of this plant are modified into hollow green pitchers! The inside of the pitcher is red with downward facing hair. The pitcher looks harmless with water at the bottom, until an insect comes visiting. The inside of the pitcher has some hairs facing downwards enabling the insect to slide down.
The lower half of the pitcher is smooth and the poor insect slides into the watery grave! The water contains a mixture of chemicals and bacteria that dissolves the insect trapped inside. The plants absorb these fluids as food. However, not all insects are trapped. Some survive the watery grave, mate, multiply and live in the pitcher!
Nepenthes, the tropical pitcher plant, are larger plants than their temperate cousins. Nepenthes rajah, in forests of Malaysia, have pitchers that are the size of a rugby football, and can capture frogs! The insects in this case are attracted to the pitcher by the smell and color. Nepenthes plants are native to Asia, Australia, The Philippines, Borneo, Malaysia, Sumatra and some islands in the Pacific Rim. Protected by law in these places, they are rare, desirable, and a prized possession of people who grow them.
Until a couple of years ago, it was thought that Nepenthes was not a specialist. It was thought that they could eat just about any insect that was trapped. It all changed after Nepenthes albomarginata was discovered in the forests of Brunei. They catch thousands of termites in its slippery-walled, jug-shaped leaves filled with digestive fluid! In one minute nearly 25 termites fall into the pitcher! A preference for a single type of prey among carnivorous plants was thus recorded for the first time.
The plant achieves this by offering its own tissue, the white hairs that encircle the top of the pitcher, as a bait. Foraging termites find these hairs irresistible! Termites that stumble as they forage fall into the pitcher. Typically, plants in the canopy trap only a few dozen insects in the six-month life span of a pitcher. Most pitcher plants live high in the rainforest canopy and use markings or scent to attract winged insects to their doom. N. albomarginata lives on the gloomy forest floor, where termites are one of the few groups of animals present.
Exploiting meager resources, and thriving in harsh environments, insectivorous plants, like Drosera, remind us that in nature every challenge is an opportunity.
Last updated on :11/10/2003
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Dimdima is the Sanskrit word for ‘drumbeat’. In olden days, victory in battle was heralded by the beat of drums or any important news to be conveyed to the people used to be accompanied with drumbeats.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
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Chowpatty, Mumbai - 400 007
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Dimdima.com, the Children's Website of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan launched in 2000 and came out with a Printed version of Dimdima Magazine in 2004. At present the Printed Version have more than 35,000 subscribers from India and Abroad.