Scientists Discover Small Unassuming White Flower from the Pacific North West is Carnivorous

A new discovery by reasearchers at the University of British Columbia shows that there's more to some small white common swampy bog flowers than meets the eye.

I've seen these before. I've got a dry one pressed in a photo album somewhere I collected years ago for a plant collection project thing we had to do for school. Pretty sure I found it in Burn's Bog.

Turns out the little little flower is a bug eating killer that absorbs the nutrients from insects stuck to its sticky stalk.



Turns out, this is the first new carnivorous plant activity discovered in the last 20 years, so that's pretty cool.

www.npr.org...

The bog-dwelling western false asphodel, Triantha occidentalis, was first described in the scientific literature in 1879. But until now, no one realized this sweet-looking plant used its sticky stem to catch and digest insects, according to researchers who note in their study published Monday it's the first new carnivorous plant to be discovered in about 20 years.

We had no idea it was carnivorous," says Sean Graham, a botanist with the University of British Columbia. "This was not found in some exotic tropical location, but really right on our doorstep in Vancouver. You could literally walk out from Vancouver to this field site."

Fewer than 1,000 plant species are carnivorous, and these plants tend to live in places with abundant sun and water but nutrient-poor soil.

To see if the plants could actually take in nutrients from insects, researcher Qianshi Lin, now at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, fed fruit flies nitrogen-15 isotopes, so that this nitrogen could be used as a tracker. He then stuck these flies to stems of this plant.

Later, an analysis showed that nitrogen from the dead insects was indeed getting into the plants. In fact, Triantha was getting more than half of its nitrogen from prey. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published online Monday, Lin and his colleagues say that this is comparable to what's seen in other carnivorous plants.

What's more, the researchers showed that the sticky hairs on the flower stalk produce a digestive enzyme that's known to be used by many carnivorous plants.

Neat! Makes me wonder if other plant species with sticky parts are quietly eating bugs too, without all the fancy snapping stuff like venus flytraps.

Well if the great reset happens, we will all be eating bugs…..ya know, for protein…lol

a reply to: dug88

Triffids.

Stay safe.

a reply to: dug88

I'll be honest, I quickly scanned the title and read;

............White Flower from the Pacific North West is Coronavirus.

I might give the internet a miss today.

On a side note, I always find the naming of things very curious, such as your western false asphodel. I checked for the eastern true variety ..... absolutely nothing.

a reply to: myselfaswell

Not everything's about the rona. sometimes you gotta stop and smell the flowers. Actually don't they might eat you apparently.

originally posted by: igloo
Neat! Makes me wonder if other plant species with sticky parts are quietly eating bugs too, without all the fancy snapping stuff like venus flytraps.

The sundews (Drosera genus, Byblis genus and a handful of others) do just that. It isn't as flashy as the flytraps, but can be quite gooey. This little plant seems to be extremely subtle in its goo factor.

There are also the pitcher plants (Sarracenia, Nepenthes, etc.) that are just passive pots of fluid dissolving the goodies that drown.

a reply to: dug88
"Feed me Seymour! Feed me all night long."

They should do gain of function on this guy so it can eat people and we should air mail it China as retaliation for lantern flies.

originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: dug88
"Feed me Seymour! Feed me all night long."

Exactly.

It always starts out nice and innocent.

Then the screaming starts.

There are a few plants can create chemistry to kill bugs that are eating them, then they create enzymes to break down the bugs and disolve them and digest them. Not really carnivorous, but still they do create fertilizer out of bugs.

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: Klassified
a reply to: dug88
"Feed me Seymour! Feed me all night long."

Exactly.

It always starts out nice and innocent.

Then the screaming starts.

everybody all gansta until the eating starts.

I've always liked the idea that the Venus Flytrap was actually either an extraterrestrial plant or one mutated in some way by a virus transmitted at the end of the Younger Dryas due to the second big meteorite impact above the North American ice sheet. Found only in the Carolina Bays. No known precursors or relatives.

a reply to: igloo

FYI venus flytraps are only found in the wild in a few bogs in north and south carolina, they are basically near extinct in the wild.