Plant Adaptations

Organisms adapt to various conditions over a long time span. Carnivorous plants are no exception. Some have adapted to form themselves into traps to hold and digest insects, while others have adapted to move rapidly to catch their prey (such as Venus Flytraps)! But Why have they adapted to do this?

Poor Nutrition in Media Environments

In the natural environment of most carnivorous plants, there are few nutrients available in the ground. This has forced these plants to find alternative means of gathering nutrients. Additionally, when growing these plants in your household, you should mimic this environment with specialty media that is devoid of nutrients.

Nutrition Available in the Environment

Although the ground is mostly devoid of nutrients in the habitat of most carnivorous plants there is one place where these plants can gather nutrients: the insects and organisms that live around the plant!

Making the Best of a Bad Environment

Putting together the conditions of poor nutrition in the plant’s media, organisms being rich in nutrients, and plants being adaptable, we get carnivorous plants! These plants have evolved to overcome their environment’s nutrient-poor environments by adapting to trap and digest insects and other organisms in their surroundings. This allows these plants to grow and gather nutrients in an unconventional method and enables them to survive in their unique environments.

Looking to Start Growing Carnivorous Plants?

If you find these plants as interesting as we do, you may want to begin growing some for yourself. If so we recommend our Drosera capensis for beginners or our other plants for intermediates. Thank you for reading!