Why does the sundew, which is a plant, prey on insects?

Plants are mostly static in our minds, and they produce sweet fruits just by using sunlight, water, and air. And add a touch of greenery to the earth. But there are some plants that do not survive with water and air, and they need to capture some insects to maintain their own growth.

Today we're going to talk about plants that are spear paste.

The way of survival of spear paste vegetables.

Although it also depends on the sun to grow, the decisive factor for its growth is not sunlight. And small insects. The color of the spear paste is particularly bright, and its leaves have a lot of glandular hairs, and the tips of these glandular hairs have a lot of mucus.

These mucus can give off a fragrance and attract insects.

When small insects land on the leaves of the spear paste, the small insects will be stuck by the mucus secreted by the glandular hairs on the leaves. At this time, the leaves of the spear paste will be quickly rolled up. Trap the bugs to prevent them from escaping.

At the same time, the spear paste will secrete an acidic substance and begin to digest the bugs. After the insects are digested and absorbed, the leaves of the spear paste will reopen.

Why does spear paste catch bugs?

Because most of the spear paste vegetables are grown in swamps, wetlands and other areas. Some of the trace elements that grow in some plants in these areas are particularly scarce, so we cannot grow and develop by absorbing elements from the soil wetlands. Not only that, but the root system of the spear paste is very fragile, so it can only absorb water and transport it to the plant.

However, this does not solve the embarrassment faced by the growth and development of spear paste vegetables.

So the spear paste has evolved to capture the leaves of insects, as well as a whole set of physiological mechanisms for digesting insects. This is also the mechanism that spear paste has evolved in order to survive. However, in recent years, some trace elements in the soil are no longer scarce in the area where the spear paste is grown, due to industrial emissions.

So some spear paste vegetables don't need to catch insects to survive. This also results in some glandular hairs that no longer secrete mucus, or secrete too little mucus. Although there is no need to catch insects, this is not necessarily a good thing for spear paste.

The sundew itself relies on the enlargement of cells on one side to envelop the animal, and since it relies on hydraulic movement, it is not surprising that it envelops the prey for 1 2 days.

Why doesn't my sundew catch insects close immediately?

It feels like you're talking about Venus Venus (a plant whose leaves don't close completely within 30 minutes, in order to allow small insects to escape and save energy to capture large insects).

Do you know what kind of insect predator is thatched grass? If you don't know, come in and take a look!

Because it is an insectivorous plant. Sandew. Once caught, the worms are digested and absorbed by the glandular hairs, a process that usually lasts 5-10 days. During this time, the worms are digested by enzymes.

Decomposes into nutrients such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, and after a short period of time, the insect is left with only chitin.

composed of empty shells. Interestingly, the hunting targets of sundew are not divided into species and sizes, as long as they can be caught, they are "eaten".

Precautions for the cultivation of sundew.

Soil: not very demanding, peat can be added to perlite.

It is advisable to modulate and use, so that the culture soil is relatively loose and breathable.

Light: The irradiation of light is conducive to promoting the bright color of its leaves, so it needs to maintain no less than 6 hours of light per day, and it can be placed on the south-facing balcony.

As a plant, the sundew preys on insects because it can generate an electric current that can cause some structures on the plant to close, which can also be used to catch insects. After all, this is just an ordinary plant, it basically does not need to rely on some nutrients from foreign substances to obtain a lot of nutrients, it can rely on the photosynthesis of its own leaves, to produce a lot of nutrients for itself. However, the root system of this sundew is not very developed, so it is necessary to rely on this method to obtain another part of the nutrients from the insects.

When an insect approaches a sundew, it does not feel anything, because the plant only relies on the touch of an external object to have an effect. When an insect touches the leaves of this plant, it produces an electric charge that relies on some small antennae on the sundew to conduct it. The pores in the cell membrane open up, and the liquid flows from the inside of the cell to the outside of the cell, and then the leaves gradually begin to close, and even if the insect has the ability to fly, it is difficult to break free from the shackles of the leaf.

This is the specific principle of predation of insects, and there are also many plants that prey on insects.

Plants such as Venus flytrap and Nepenthes have this function, and they rely on similar principles to get a firm grip on the insects they want to catch, and then get the nutrients they need from the insects. Because these insects basically live in swamps, the sunlight and nutrients in the swamp are very small, and it has no way to obtain some of the inherent elements that ordinary plants want to have, so it can only be obtained through insects.

Of course, it is okay not to prey on insects, because there are only some elements that are relatively few, and it has not yet reached the point of poverty. However, the structure is adapted to the function, and it has this special structure, which means that it has the obligation to prey on insects.

Do you know what kind of insect predator is thatched grass? If you don't know, come in and take a look!

A strange plant was found on the side of the road, which specialized in preying on small insects, and the leaves looked like small spoons.

It is the same as the insectivorous habitat, the environment lacks elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and the photosynthetic efficiency is low and requires insect supplementation.

The predatory characteristics of sundew are as follows:

When small insects fall into its trap, they will be stuck by its mucus, and can only become its "Xunnian plate Chinese meal".

After the small insects are stuck by the mucus, the end of the mucus gland will move closer to the insect until the captured insect is digested and eaten! From a professional point of view, it belongs to the genus of the family of sundew, and on the surface it has the word "vegetable" on the name, but in fact it is not a vegetable commonly eaten in life.

It's a real carnivore. When catching insects, although it does not move to chase insects, it is naturally able to set traps to attract insects to take the bait. As long as the insect falls into the trap it has set, it is often doomed.

In layman's terms, the soil is the soil that ordinary plants get nutrients from, and they get necessary nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen from the soil. Carnivorous plants are different from ordinary plants, and their first way to obtain nutrients is to capture small insects to digest.

It is a large group of insectivorous plants, belonging to the genus Acacia spp., with a total of about 244 species of locust in the genus. They vary in form and are found all over the world, but they all share a common feature: glandular hairs on their leaves, which secrete dewdrop-like mucus. In China, sundry is mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River, such as Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places.

Because prey can be fed more quickly.

Because it still has to prey on some insects to survive, photosynthesis alone is not enough.

Catching insects can provide nutrients more quickly than photosynthesis.

Because hundreds of years of evolution have given them the ability to prey on bugs.

Because there is too little nutrients and energy for photosynthesis.

Because his chlorophyll is not enough, the substances he produces are not enough for his own needs

Because insects have a much higher nutrient content than those that do photosynthesis.

He grows not only through photosynthesis, but also needs to hunt for food himself.

There are many species of insectivorous plants, and pitcher plants and sundew are actually a large group, and there are many kinds of them. In addition, flytraps and raccoon algae are insectivorous plants. Raccoon algae are also insectivorous plants in water.

In addition, many tropical plants, such as some pineapples and some agaves, have small pools of rainwater at the base of their petioles, and insects will drown and then rot after falling into them. If such plants are also called insectivorous plants in the broad sense, then there are even more insectivorous plants.

This is because sundew is better able to attract insects to the leaves.

Because it's to attract bugs and eat them.

Each of them has a small hole for catching insects.

Because there are a lot of small holes in it.

Because they are able to attract insects to the leaves very well.

It will stick to the little flying insects and eat them.

Because this can attract a bug.

There are small holes to lure which insects to hunt and thus to carry out predation.