Grow Carnivorous Plants!

Darlingtonia californica is one of many carnivorous plants native to the West Coast. If you think that Darlingtonia grows mostly in the cool coastal regions of Oregon, think again!  The vast majority of Darlingtonia grows in the mountains of southern Oregon and northern Californica.

In late July, we traveled to southern Oregon to document Darlingtonia growing in the Siskiyou National Forest.  We filmed some rarely seen habitats that go against the conventional wisdom that Darlingtonia needs constant high humidity and cool temperatures.

The video is under 9 minutes, but it’s packed with lots of interesting footage about their growing conditions.  We also recorded data, such as air temperature, soil temperature, water temperature, relative humidity and water hardness.

Cephalotus follicularis is one of many carnivorous plants native to Australia. This video showcases how the plant is pollinated by ants. All footage of the ant is the same ant throughout the video. I found the ant running around the flower stalks when I was about to hand-pollinate the flowers myself. Ants are common prey with Cephaltous in the wild, so it’s not at all unusual for it to be common pollinators.

Bumblebees are abundant around the nursery when Sarracenia flowers are in bloom. Hopefully we’ll have lots of carnivorous plant seeds this year!

Carnivorous plants are in bloom! I filmed this video in the early evening. The lighting was simply perfect to capture the delicate colors among the Sarracenia. Only a small handful of Sarracenia had open pitchers at the time, but many displayed a gorgeous array of flowers. There are a few footage of sundews and Darlingtonia. The video, however, showcases Sarracenia flowers.

I didn’t see the actual closure, but I happened to pass by this flytrap when the fly was still alive. The music in the background was a radio commercial happening at the same time. I didn’t realize how comical the music was until I watched the video.  It’s an odd carnivorous plant comedy/tragedy.

The flytrap is the dente variety, which has shorter teeth than the typical flytrap. Because of the shorter teeth, some prey can escape if they’re quick enough. This prey just wasn’t quick enough, so it’s head got caught. This is a common occurrence with the dente variety. You don’t see this with typical flytraps because their longer teeth keep their prey in place.