An exciting discovery
"What is this?" I ask a friend. I slowly step backwards from the tiny plants I almost squished. Peering down, I can see tiny plants, about the size of my palm, nestled between the weeds. Each plant is bright green with hints of pink around the edges. The little leaves are arranged in a perfect rosette. On the very tips of the leaves, I can see what appears to be tiny drops of dew - but it hasn't been raining today. Kneeling down, I can see a tiny insect stuck to a leaf.
The plant I nearly stepped on was a Scented Sundew - Drosera whittakeri. This beautiful plant is native to South Australia and Victoria, and while I had never heard of it until recently, it isn't rare. It grows from a tubar in moist areas, very low to the ground. It flowers during winter and spring, This tiny plant uses the sticky droplets on its leaves as a trap for insects walking by. The plant then uses enzymes to break down the insect and uses the nutrients like it would use nutrients from the soil. This wonderful find has lead me to discover more about the intriguing world of carnivorous plants.
The Curiosities of the plant world
Carnivorous plants are so cool! Unique, fascinating and striking; they capture the curiosity of children and adults alike. I always have associated them with lush tropical rainforests and swampy, waterlogged soil. As a child, I had a little Venus Fly Trap in a pot, but due to the lack of food and my overenthusiastic pocking to watch it magically close, it died fairly quickly. In nature documentaries, they are often featured, but besides a few basic facts, I didn't know much about carnivorous plants until I started to research further.
Carnivorous plants tend to grow in areas with low nutrients in the soils, such as swaps, sandy areas and close to bodies of water. While I associate them with certain areas of the world, like tropical rainforests, carnivorous plants are actually found on all continents except for Antarctica.
There are over 600 species of carnivorous plant around the world. Carnivorous plants exist in multiple different genera of plants and have evolved at different times. Despite this, carnivorous plants all use the same strategy to survive low nutrient soil - eating prey to get the nutrients required to survive.
Why be carnivorous?
These plants have evolved to have different mechanisms used to capture and eat prey like insects, but they still photosynthesise like any other plant. There are different ways carnivorous plants capture their prey, ranging from the classic clasp of a Venus Fly Trap to the large pit traps of Attenborough’s pitcher plant, which is capable of killing rodents, not just insects. Being carnivorous is not just really cool, it is strategy that allows plants to thrive in tough conditions. If a soil has very low nitrogen and phosphorus, the plant still needs those nutrients from somewhere.
Being carnivorous isn't the only way nature has worked around There are other ways plants have adapted to soils with low nutrients. Legumes, such as beans, work symbiotically with bacteria to fix nitrogen into a form that the plant can use. Many other plants use alternative sources of food energy, such as from the air (epiphites) and even from other plants (parasitic plants). Carnivorous plants are just one of a variety of amazing adaptions the plant world has for tough conditions.
Australia has native carnivorous plants?
Australia actually has about 250 species of native carnivorous plants! We have more native carnivorous plants than any other part of the world. Australia generally has been very geologically stable, with very old soils that are low in nutrients. This combination of factors has allowed carnivorous plants to thrive across the country, with a high concentration of plants in WA, easpecially in the South West.
Geologically speaking, Australia has been very stable for a long time. It is far from tectonic plate margins, so there aren't lots of mountains. This stability means that lots of Australia has been exposed to weathering for a long time, which has lead to the soils we know today. Since the clearing of land by Europeans, there has also been degradation of some soils, as they changed the ways the soil had been cared for. Even though soil looks like a bit of brown stuff on the ground, I find it absolutely fascinating; soil is a key part of our lives. Some soil may not have enough nutrients for a hungry vegetables but it doesn't make it 'bad soil' - without nutrient poor soil, we wouldn't get so many fascinating and beautiful plants!
Australia has many different species of sundew, like the Scented Sundew that I spotted. These all use sticky leaves to capture prey. There are different species of bladderwart, which use bladder-like traps with hinged doors. There are also plants similar to Venus Fly Traps (like Aldrovanda vesiculosa, also known at the waterwheel plant), and even pitcher plants! There are many species of carnivorous plant yet to be discovered or found.
Where to learn more
Once I knew a little about carnivorous plants, I couldn't help but dive headfirst into research. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface about these incredible plants and I am excited to learn as much as possible. I have found the same to be about plants in general. Just when I feel like I understand nature, I discover something even more interesting and incredible.
If you are interested in learning about the carnivorous plants local to your area, a great place to start is joining a local group - the friends of a local national park, taking a Bush for Life course. These groups are filled with people with knowledge and expertise, and those people are often very generous with teaching newcomers information - they just want other people to get as excited as them about plants! Gardening Australia also had a wonderful clip about the garden of someone who researches native carnivorous plants, it is well worth a watch if you want to be inspired but don't feel like you are ready to make new friends. If you want to get very serious about carnivorous plants, there are societies dedicated to them, but I don't know much about them.
A key note: if you want to have that cool native plant in your garden, don't just got take it from a national park or from the wild in general. Leave the wild plants be, they are important and should be left alone. Instead, seek out a local plant nursery, especially those that stock lots of native plants.
Carnivorous but delicate
Even though the Scented Sundew is doing okay, many carnivorous plants are endangered. More than a quarter of the world's endangered plants are threatened by extinction. This is mostly driven by habitat loss, but other factors play a role as well. By changing a habitat to suit human needs, we are often changing the ways water flows through an area, which has a massive impact on a plant that relies on damp conditions. Climate change is leading to hotter, dryer conditions, which also impact carnivorous plants. Due to their unique nature, some carnivorous plants can be targets for plant poachers. Carnivorous plants are very sensitive to changes in water and nutrients, which means their poor health can be an early warning sign of land degradation.
Like all of nature, carnivorous plants do not exist in a vacuum. The health of these plants is related and dependent on the health of the ecosystem as a whole. For such a tiny plant, the Scented Sundew has brought me so much joy and intrigue. These fascinating plants deserve more protection and care, as do the threatened ecosystems they call home.
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