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nepenthes x coccinea
Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. It has been widely assumed that the various sorts of pitfall trap evolved from rolled leaves, with selection pressure favouring more deeply cupped leaves over evolutionary time. However, some pitcher plant genera (such as Nepenthes) are placed within clades consisting mostly of flypaper traps: this indicates that this view may be too simplistic, and some pitchers may have evolved from the common ancestors of today's flypaper traps by loss of mucilage. (Wikipedia)
UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens, Berkeley, CA.
Spotted on Sep 18, 2011
Submitted on Nov 19, 2011
2 Comments
@VivBraznell: that's great that you have your own plant--I think they are such beautiful plants.
Someone gave me a Pitcher plant for my birthday a few years ago. I grow it in a pot, and have just repotted it, not easy as it is clinging to some branches that I added for support, but I love it so much that I did'nt want to plant it in the garden. The pitchers are such a beautiful shape that I like to look at them everyday.