Where would we be without greenery? We depend upon plants for oxygen, food, medicine and building materials and without them, life as we know it wouldn't exist. Not every plant fits this wholesome mold though. Let's take a look at...
Mature pitchers exude a fatty substance around their rim, which the local tree shrew population find irresistible. The pitcher "thoughtfully" provides a latrine for the small mammals, catching their droppings while they eat from the edge. The feces are an excellent source of nitrogen for the plant, and help it survive in areas where there are fewer insects to trap and eat.
Another pitcher plant (Nepenthes hemsleyana) offers a safe, parasite-free roosting place for bats, even advertising itself by reflecting ultrasound for the bats to home in on. In return, the pitcher collects the droppings of the nocturnal mammals as a source of nitrogen.
The flowers of Hydnora africana are fleshy-looking red -brown growths with white strands across a slit-like opening. The overall effect looks like some kind of burrowing toothed worm, but beetles find the stinking, dung-like aroma intoxicating and climb right it. The beetles then find they cannot get out - the bloom keeps them trapped, wandering around inside and depositing pollen from other Hydnora until they are released by the flower opening fully a few days later.
The Towering, Stinking Corpse FlowerKnown as the corpse flower, the titan arum lily has the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence (or flowering structure) along with an abominable stench... though only for one evening. Native to Sumatra, the plant attracts flesh-eating insects to pollinate itself, rather than relying on nectar-seeking bees.
The arum uses a few tricks to attract insects. For one thing, the flower spike can reach 3 meters in height and emits heat - this spreads the rotting-corpse perfume of the flower across a wide area, while helping it resemble decomposing meat. The inside of the flower is also a red-purple, looking like the torn open body-cavity of a large animal.
Despite the awful smell, it seems to hold a fascination for humans as well - when the plant bloomed at Kew Gardens in 1926, the crowds were so large that police had to be summoned to control them!
For a microscopic organism, the devastation these blooms can cause is impressive. An outbreak can cover the shoreline in dead fish, while whales, sea-turtles and manatees can suffer a similar fate. The foam produced by some of the algae can even leech the waterproofing from seabird feathers, dooming the poor avians. Humans contacting the toxins or even living near a red tide can fall ill, and "paralytic shellfish poisoning" is a potentially fatal consequence of eating shellfish from tainted waters.
Though red tides are thought to be aggravated by fertilizer run-off, the phenomenon was known amongst the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. It may just be a natural part of ocean life.
Here comes the problem - the seeds are toxic and contain abrin, which is pretty similar to ricin. Though not harmless, eating the seeds whole only results in mild symptoms as the hard coating keeps the toxins inside. If the shell is broken (by threading them onto string to make jewelry, for example) the odds of survival when ingested are much, much worse. The humans most likely to be affected are children playing with the beads of worn jewelry, though crushed seeds have been consumed intentionally in suicide attempts.
Grazing animals may naturally ingest the seeds... or be intentionally poisoned as a form of revenge against a neighbor. Apparently the seeds can be ground in water to make a paste, then sun-dried in the shape of a needle. The needles can then be jabbed into livestock to slowly poison them. This is a fairly subtle form of attack - not only do the injection sites resemble a poisonous bite, the effects of the toxin look like the naturally-occurring "black quarter" disease.
- The Pitcher Plant Moonlighting as a Toilet
- The Plant That Mimics a Fungus
- The Towering, Stinking Corpse Flower
- Toxic Red Tides
- The Deadly Seeds Used as Beads
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| Some pitcher plants specialize in being rodent toilets! (sangpemotret) |
The Pitcher Plant Moonlighting as a Toilet
Most plants are primary producers - they take energy from the sun to produce chemical energy using photosynthesis. Then there are carnivorous plants, greenery that got tired of being at the bottom of the food chain and started trapping everything between insects and rats. Then there's Nepenthes lowii, a carnivorous pitcher plant that provides shrews with a combined snack-bar and toilet.Mature pitchers exude a fatty substance around their rim, which the local tree shrew population find irresistible. The pitcher "thoughtfully" provides a latrine for the small mammals, catching their droppings while they eat from the edge. The feces are an excellent source of nitrogen for the plant, and help it survive in areas where there are fewer insects to trap and eat.
Another pitcher plant (Nepenthes hemsleyana) offers a safe, parasite-free roosting place for bats, even advertising itself by reflecting ultrasound for the bats to home in on. In return, the pitcher collects the droppings of the nocturnal mammals as a source of nitrogen.
The Plant That Mimics a Fungus
The Hydranora resemble a fungus and steal nutrients from the root systems of other plants rather than photosynthesizing. They exist almost entirely underground, producing only an alien looking flower on the surface world. The sub-surface section of the plant (the rhizome) can get pretty large - one example in Uganda supposedly grew big enough to damage the structure of the house above it.The flowers of Hydnora africana are fleshy-looking red -brown growths with white strands across a slit-like opening. The overall effect looks like some kind of burrowing toothed worm, but beetles find the stinking, dung-like aroma intoxicating and climb right it. The beetles then find they cannot get out - the bloom keeps them trapped, wandering around inside and depositing pollen from other Hydnora until they are released by the flower opening fully a few days later.
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| Nostrils of steel... (David Clode) |
The arum uses a few tricks to attract insects. For one thing, the flower spike can reach 3 meters in height and emits heat - this spreads the rotting-corpse perfume of the flower across a wide area, while helping it resemble decomposing meat. The inside of the flower is also a red-purple, looking like the torn open body-cavity of a large animal.
Despite the awful smell, it seems to hold a fascination for humans as well - when the plant bloomed at Kew Gardens in 1926, the crowds were so large that police had to be summoned to control them!
Toxic Red Tides
Would you want to swim if the sea turned into blood? Red tides are actually made up of thriving algae (photosynthetic protists related to true plants) creating dense blooms of microscopic flora in the water. It might be safer if this miniscule seaweed was blood though, as these blooms can produce toxins that harm the skin, make shellfish inedible, kill marine-life and can even make air hard to breathe. Even in death they cause problems - the decaying mass of flora can drain oxygen from the surrounding waters, making them unlivable for fish.For a microscopic organism, the devastation these blooms can cause is impressive. An outbreak can cover the shoreline in dead fish, while whales, sea-turtles and manatees can suffer a similar fate. The foam produced by some of the algae can even leech the waterproofing from seabird feathers, dooming the poor avians. Humans contacting the toxins or even living near a red tide can fall ill, and "paralytic shellfish poisoning" is a potentially fatal consequence of eating shellfish from tainted waters.
Though red tides are thought to be aggravated by fertilizer run-off, the phenomenon was known amongst the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. It may just be a natural part of ocean life.
The Deadly Seeds Used as Beads
Abrus precatorius is a pretty weed found in the tropics and neo-tropics. It has many names (including the jequirity bean, black-eyed Susan and coral bead plant) that point towards the hard shiny black and red seeds it produced, which have historically been used to make (or thanks to their uniform size, measure) jewelry.Here comes the problem - the seeds are toxic and contain abrin, which is pretty similar to ricin. Though not harmless, eating the seeds whole only results in mild symptoms as the hard coating keeps the toxins inside. If the shell is broken (by threading them onto string to make jewelry, for example) the odds of survival when ingested are much, much worse. The humans most likely to be affected are children playing with the beads of worn jewelry, though crushed seeds have been consumed intentionally in suicide attempts.
Grazing animals may naturally ingest the seeds... or be intentionally poisoned as a form of revenge against a neighbor. Apparently the seeds can be ground in water to make a paste, then sun-dried in the shape of a needle. The needles can then be jabbed into livestock to slowly poison them. This is a fairly subtle form of attack - not only do the injection sites resemble a poisonous bite, the effects of the toxin look like the naturally-occurring "black quarter" disease.
Thanks for reading - for more strange nature, try...