Flora Eats Fauna

Some people like their gardens to grow like Martha Stewart’s. They’re wimps.

We like gardens with some bite, like Seymour’s in “Little Shop of Horrors.” Yes, we’re talking about plants that need more than Miracle-Gro to thrive. Plants that eat meat. Man plants.

OK, so technically Seymour’s flesh-eating flora was named Audrey II. It was still pretty butch.

Turns out, carnivorous plants are big on the Web. There’s even a Web ring devoted to the bug-eating beauties. You can view a list of the Web ring sites at https://www.tbcpc.org/webring/all_sites.phtml, but if you want to save some time, just keep reading. We surf so you don’t have to.

The botany department at the University of Georgia is a good starting point. It has a series of greenhouse tours, including one specifically for carnivorous plants at https://dogwood.botany.uga.edu/Tour6.html. There are photos of a number of species and a brief description of the ways different plants trap insects.

And just for the record, these plants became adept at trapping and devouring insects to make up for poor soil conditions. It’s not their fault they’re killers; it’s the neighborhoods where they grew up.

Your next stop should be the International Carnivorous Plant Society at https://www.carnivorousplants.org. There are striking photos, including some of plants caught right in the act of trapping six-legged victims.

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UC Berkeley has a couple of plant sites worth checking out. First, go for a panoramic picture of cobra lilies at https://wwwgeoimages.berkeley.edu/ geoimages/qtvr/siskiyous/ littlevulcanlakes.html. Spin that photo fast enough and you’ll forget carnivorous plants and think hallucinogenic.

The school also has a huge searchable database of plant photos at https://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/flora.

The Carnivorous Plant Database at https://www.labs.agilent.com/bot/cp_home has information, photos and botanical drawings.

Ready for your own little Audreys? California Carnivores at https://www.californiacarnivores.com is one place to start, especially if you live in this state, which gets pretty uptight about out-of-state plants. In fact, some out-of-state nurseries charge higher shipping fees if the plant is coming to California.

In addition to selling the plants, the Northern California nursery has very clear growing instructions posted for each species.

Meat-eating plants draw a pretty dedicated following. Some might say too dedicated. Here are a few personal Web pages for them:

Room of Carnivorous Plants at https://www.edit.ne.jp/~kohsaka/html_e/carni_e.htm has some OK photos, but, dude, lose the translator and get an editor.

Mike has started a free carnivorous plants seed bank at https://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1150.

Planet Michael has cultivation info on his carnivorous plants page and sells the little carnivores on EBay. He’s at https://www.rdrop.com/users/mvz/plants.htm.

Bugs beware.

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