Saturday, April 30, 2011

Real Killer Plant #6



I'm from Florida, by father was a botanists of sort (he used to run the state forest system in that state)....yeah I grew up in Tallahassee....and bromiliads are very native, in some many varieties to that state, and the Caribbean, and central and south America.  Florida has everything from "Spanish Moss" (it's not Spanish and, obviously, it's not moss) to pineapples.  Bromiliads are plants that evolved in hot and humid climates and take a almost all nutrients out of the air vapour around them.  I don't know why then, since the grow to collect dew and other humid moisture in pools in the stem structure that it has taken so long for real botanists to realize that some of the these plants are going to evolve to digest insects that get trapped in those moisture pools.  Well this plant has been proven to be in a state of carnivorous evolution.  It has started to produce the building blocks of what can be recognized as digestive enzymes in it's fluid build up.  Hey at least those bugs didn't die in vain! It has various name in it's native range of central and south America, most are native American and I couldn't find any on the web.  So we're stuck with it's Latin name.

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