Carnivorous << kahr NIHV uhr uhs >> plant is any plant that traps insects for food. Such plants are also called insectivorous plants. Carnivorous plants usually live in moist places where they get little or no nitrogen from the soil. The plants must obtain nitrogen from the insects that they trap. Carnivorous plants have special organs with which to capture insects, and glands that give off a digestive fluid to help them make use of their food. Some carnivorous plants have flowers colored or scented in such a way as to appear or smell at a distance like decaying meat. This attracts insects.
Various devices have been developed by carnivorous plants as traps. For example, pitcher plants have tube-shaped leaves that hold rain water in which the insects drown. Rosettes of leaves provided with sticky hairlike parts are borne by the sundews. When an insect is caught by the hairlike parts, the leaf margins curl around it, trapping it inside. The Venus flytrap has leaves that work like a steel trap. They close tightly about an insect, holding it inside.
