Venus Fly Trap
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This is a carnivorous plant which lives in marshy ground. It mainly catches insect and spiders
When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap prepares to close. It snaps shut only if another contact occurs within about twenty seconds of the first. The mechanism serves as a safeguard against wasting energy by trapping objects such as a dust grain with no nutritional value. The plant then secretes digestive enzymes but will only do this after five more stimuli to the hairs. This ensures it has caught a live bug.
Sundew
Insects are caught to suppliment poor mineral nutrition by specialised leaves.
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The leaf has numerous tentacles each topped by a sticky secretion. There are usually two types of gland. 1. Stalked glands that secrete a sweet mucilage to attract and glue the insect to the leaf and enzymes to digest the insect. 2. Sessile glands which absorb the resulting nutrient soup. Eventually, the prey dies through exhaustion or through asphyxiation as the mucilage envelops them and clogs their breathing pores. The tentacles ar able to move in response to contact with prey. They are extremely sensitive and bend toward the center of the leaf to bring the insect into contact with as many stalked glands as possible.
