Location Taken: Placentia, Newfoundland
Time Taken: July 2012
Such a pretty flower, isn’t it?
Pretty unusual too.
For one thing, it’s brown. Not your standard flower color at all. It’s also got a very clever double layer of thicker petals to force the pollinators past all the pollen-bearing and collecting sections of the flower, which is more elaborate than most plants bother with. It even makes them hit the various parts in the right order so the plant doesn’t end up pollinating itself.
But then, this plant is a master of manipulating insects.
It eats them, after all.
This is a pitcher plant flower. The leaves of this plant are specialized for luring in insects into a long tube, trapping them, and using them as a nutrient source.
Not that I saw any actual pitchers in this boggy field full of brown flowers on tall stalks. They develop after the flowering period is over. Might have something to do with not wanting to kill off your pollinators or the like. I know, why would the plants ever care about such things, right?
It’s actually the provincial flower of Newfoundland. Gotta like a place that celebrates carnivorous plants, if I say so myself.
