Insectivorous plant name and picture--Sarracenia rubriflora

English name: scarlet bottle grass

Latin scientific name: Sarracenia x Scarlet Belle

Families and genera: Pyrrhaceae

Distribution of origin: horticultural species

Scarlet bottle grass is a very popular variety, eye-catching white spots with bright red net pattern, really very beautiful! It is a relatively large and elegant insectivorous plant with bottle-shaped erect or side-lying leaves, most of which are brightly colored with gorgeous spots or nets, similar in shape to the cages of pitcher plants, and can secrete honey and digestive juice. insects lured by honey fall into the bottle, and the digestive juice in the bottle will digest and absorb the insects! Watering needs to use water with low mineral content (such as Rain Water, pure water, etc.); like strong light, light will make the plant grow stronger and brightly colored.

Introduction of firefly (Luciole)-- (French, vine, light leaf, scarlet, 1923)

Chinese scientific name: firefly

Latin name: Luciole

Color: scarlet, white center

Fragrance: light fragrance

Country: 1923 AugusteNonin & Fils, France

Category: vine branches, light leaves, rose rose

Flower pattern: small, single to semi-single, clustered, large cluster flowering form

Introduction: firefly, English name Luciole. Cultivated by AugusteNonin & Fils in France in 1923, it belongs to rose rose with vine branches and light leaves. Scarlet flowers, white center, small, single to semi-single, clustered, large cluster flowering form.

English name: Firefly

English name: Luciole

Registered name: Luciole

Cultivation: French AugusteNonin & Fils in 1923

Category: vine branches, light leaves, rose rose

Color: scarlet, white center

Flower fragrance: light fragrance

Branches: climbing

Flower pattern: small, single to semi-single, clustered, large cluster flowering form

Parent-child: Hiawatha × Seedling

Pot insectivorous plants are good helpers to ward off mosquitoes in summer.

Dentate flytrap feeds on earthworms

Scarlet bottle grass

Thatched grass

Pitcher plant

Summer is the peak season for mosquito breeding. What plants like hot and humid environment can kill mosquitoes? In people's traditional view, it seems only natural for plants to be eaten by animals. However, in the broad plant world, there is a kind of strange and interesting insectivorous plants that can catch not only live insects, but even small animals such as frogs and dragonflies. On a hot summer day, plant a pot of insectivorous plants at home. They are good helpers to ward off mosquitoes. Jiangnan Times reporter Xu Jie / Wen Xinhua newspaper Vision Center reporter Le Tao / insectivorous plants like to eat "meat"

There are more than 20 kinds of insectivorous plants in the greenhouse of the South Garden of Nanjing Zhongshan Botanical Garden. Gu Yonghua, director of Zhongshan Botanical Garden, said that this kind of special plants are called insectivorous plants or carnivorous plants. They capture animals with glue, slippery leaves, needles, curved leaves, and can secrete digestive juices to digest them to replenish their own nutrients.

There are about 10 families, 21 genera and 630 species of insectivorous plants in the world, and there are about 3 families, 5 genera and 30 species in China, most of which live in alpine wetlands or lowland swamps. The insectivorous plants in Zhongshan Botanical Garden are common species, including pitcher plant, bottle grass, thatched vegetable, pansy, they come from southern China and Thailand and other places, growing in tropical and subtropical climate.

Why do insectivorous plants eat meat? The reason is that most of their living environment is barren, lack of nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements needed for their life activities, their roots are underdeveloped, and some of them are even completely degraded. As a result, in the long-term process of evolution, the leaves of insectivorous plants gradually evolved, forming a variety of traps to prey on insects to supplement the nitrogen necessary for survival.

Flytrap is the fastest predator.

The reporter learned that flytrap is the top "hunter" in the world of insectivorous plants. Among insectivorous plants, Darwin was particularly fond of flytrap, and he was one of the first scientists to conduct in-depth research on flytrap and other insectivorous plants. The amazing properties of the flytrap made him regard the plant as "one of the most wonderful plants in the world".

What does the "trap" of flytrap look like? The reporter saw that its two-lobe blade, shaped like a clip, usually opens, and the blade bends outward. When the staff put an earthworm on the leaf of the flytrap, it immediately closed. Half of the earthworm was in the leaf, and the other half was struggling, breaking free more and more tightly.

It turns out that when an insect climbs up a flytrap leaf to eat honey and accidentally touches its stimulating bristles two or more times, the trap will close at a very fast speed, only 0.1 seconds at the earliest. And the leaves bend inward, and the bristles on the edge of the leaves are staggered and clasped, quickly locking the prey in between. At the same time, the purplish red glands on the leaves secrete strongly acidic digestive juices, which are decomposed and digested. After 1-2 weeks, the insects are digested and absorbed, the traps are opened again, and the new "hunting" will begin again.

There are several kinds of flytrap, the toothed flytrap has a huge clip and a stout petiole, and the most obvious feature is a short triangle at the edge of the clip; there is a piranha flytrap that resembles the teeth of a piranha, and a flytrap with teeth similar to a flame; G16 is one of the largest species of flytrap, growing fast and with large clamps, with adult clamps up to more than 5 centimeters.

Plant hunters set up puzzles to catch insects.

The trapping mechanism of each kind of insectivorous plants is different, and there are a variety of ways to catch insects, some set traps to catch insects, and some secrete mucus on the leaves to stick the insects. "one is passive capture 'hunters', such as pitcher plants, bottle grasses, and thatch greens, waiting for insects to take the bait, and then digesting and absorbing them; the other is active capture, such as pansy and raccoons, which catch insects through their own active movements." Gu Yonghua said.

The pitcher plant is the most famous of the insectivorous plants, and its pouch, that is, the small cage hung down, is very attractive to insects. There are nectaries on the smooth mouth of the bag and the usually half-open lid, which can secrete sweet honey to attract insects. When these "small prey" fly in to eat honey, they will accidentally slip into the bag and fall into the "liquid pool" at the bottom of the bag, becoming the "delicacy" of pitcher plants.

According to reports, plants have evolved to use animals to obtain nutrients, and this adaptability has been praised by Darwin, a famous British biologist, as an example of miraculous craftsmanship in the process of species evolution. Darwin is one of the scholars who are most interested in insectivorous plants. he has carefully studied insectivorous plants and wrote a monograph insectivorous plants, which is still being cited to this day.

Bottle grass is an insectivorous king of appetite.

Some insectivorous plants do not have much appetite, such as thatched vegetable and pansy, which specialize in eating small flying insects, while bottle grass can prey on small animals as big as mice. At the same time, bottle grass can be regarded as the most beautiful of all insectivorous plants. Its leaves are like a good-looking vase with a top cover, and each bottle-shaped leaf is a trap. The flower stem is drawn from the base of the leaf, and the flower is yellowish green or crimson, large and beautiful.

Bottle grass catches insects by bottle-shaped leaves. Its inner wall is very smooth and has nectaries, and there are rows of pointed hairs on the bottle wall, like strong guards, catching insects and preventing them from escaping. The liquid at the bottom of the bottle is the "water dungeon" where the bottle grass captures and drowns its prey.

"the bottle grass can digest even the bones of mice." Gu Yonghua said that when greedy insects are attracted to eat honey and slowly approach the inside of the bottle mouth in order to eat more honey, they will accidentally fall into the digestive juice in the bottle, and the smooth inner wall makes it impossible for them to climb out. After drowning, the insects are decomposed by digestive juices and bacteria, nutrients are absorbed by the bottle wall, and finally the indecomposable shell is left in the bottle. However, it takes more than a week to digest an animal as big as a mouse.

Soil and water is the key to raise insectivorous plants.

In summer, mosquitoes keep coming out to "harass". Many Nanjing residents like to buy some insectivorous plants to go home, which are good-looking and can "eat mosquitoes", or choose plants that rely on special smells to drive away mosquitoes. However, it is not easy to plant them well, because the planting methods of insectivorous plants are quite different from those of ordinary flowers. They have a unique way of life, have higher requirements for cultivation substrates and need special treatment.

First of all, insectivorous plants mainly rely on catching insects to absorb nutrients, the root system is underdeveloped, the absorption capacity is weak, and the cultivated soil sold on the market is not suitable for planting because it contains more fertilizer. The commonly used soils suitable for cultivation are non-fertilizer peat, perlite, water moss, sand, red jade soil and so on. In addition, most insectivorous plants like the wet environment, can spread wet water moss on the basin, often spray water. They need water with low mineral concentration, and citizens can try to irrigate them with Rain Water or barreled water.

Some citizens sigh that when they raise a pot of pitcher plants at home, their families are still often bitten by mosquitoes. Plant experts explain that the "food intake" of pitcher plants is so small that it takes more than a week to digest a small bug. Therefore, the effect of catching insects is not as good as everyone thought. In fact, peppermint, magnolia incense, clove, perilla, calamus, jasmine, marigold and other common plants all have the effect of repelling mosquitoes, and there are up to a hundred kinds of plants that can repel mosquitoes in nature.

Common insecticidal plants

1. Mosquito repellent grass

Contains citronellal and other medicinal ingredients, perennial lemon fragrance, not only can repel mosquitoes, but also purify the air.

two。 Mint

Contains menthol, menthone and other medicinal ingredients, with a special fragrance, mosquitoes will be dizzy.

3. Jasmine flower

Contains jasmine flavonoids, mannitol and other medicinal ingredients, rich fragrance of flowers, placed indoors in summer, can keep mosquitoes away.

4. Geranium

Contains citronellol, citral and other active ingredients, sterilization, deworming and other effects, taste slightly like roses, mosquitoes and flies escape, pregnant women banned.

5. Lavender

Contains linaloyl acetate, linalool and other active ingredients, known as "after vanilla". Open a kind of blue-purple floret, the faint fragrance can dispel insects, and has the effect of calming the mind.

6. Night incense

Contains aromatic alcohol and other medicinal ingredients, every summer and autumn, will bloom clusters of yellow-green bell-shaped flowers, with strong fragrance, this fragrance makes mosquitoes fear, is a good mosquito repellent, but should not be kept indoors for a long time.

7. Seven li incense

Contains linalool and other medicinal ingredients, Ye Xiaoliangze, white dense, leaves will emit a strong sweet smell to ward off mosquitoes. The ancients used it to collect books, avoid insects, and put it under the mat to get rid of fleas.

(original title: plant an insectivorous plant at home on a hot summer day!)

Source of this article: Xinhua newspaper website