Biology Carnivorous Plant Investigation: January 2018

Concluding Remarks

We think it works by attracting fruit flies with a sweet-smelling syrup on the ends of the hairs on the stems, then trapping the fly once it gets stuck. The fly lands on the stem and gets stuck on the sticky hairs, and then starves and dies. The plant then slowly pulls the stem and fly towards its center, where the fly drops down and decomposes where the roots can absorb it. We saw a few fruit flies that had gotten stuck in this way, and the stems had started to curl inward towards the center of the plant. This leads us to believe that the plant works in such a way. The hairs also glowed under UV light.

Morphological data

Qualitative Data

Skinny green stems with red little hairs on the end
Small spores at the ends of hair with sticky liquid at the tips
Bottom of the plant is brown and dead looking
Some ends of the plant are curled inwards

Quantitative Data

Each stem around 6-8 cm long
End of stem with hairs on it are around 4-5 cm long
Four main stems
Hairs on plants around .2 cm

bottom dead part of the plant
photo by Kalea Tetsuka

length of the end of the stem
photo by Kalea Tetsuka

sticky ends of plant
photo by Kalea Tetsuka

one of the four main stems
Photo by Kalea Tetsuka

Plant Hairs

Red Hairs low Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Red Hairs Medium Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Red Hairs High Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Leaf Body

Leaf Body low Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Leaf Body low Resolution & Low Light

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Leaf Body Medium Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Leaf Body High Resolution

By Sofia Ben-Zaken

Chemical Testing - presence of sugar

Testing for the presence of sugar

Trial	Color Change
1	Yes
2	Yes
3	Yes

Conclusion
By cutting off the tips of the plants, the sticky liquid contained on the hairs turned orange when put on the hot plate - meaning it contained sugar.