Some plants get so hungry they eat flies, and small frogs. What’s more amazing is that these plants occur naturally (in special environments) in every state. In fact, they’re found on every continent except Antarctica.
You’ve probably seen a Venus’ flytrap. It’s often sold in museum gift stores, department stores, and even supermarkets. A small plant, it grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks(茎)are leaves that act like traps. Inside each trap is a lining of tiny hairs. When an insect lands on them, the traps suddenly shut. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.
The Venus’ flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International Carnivorous Plant Society’s Newsletter. He states despite any science-fiction stories you might have read, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.
Dr. Meyers-Rice says a plant is meat-eating, only if it does all four of the following: “attract, kill, digest, and absorb” some form of insects. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants—well, most of the time.
All green plants make sugar to produce food. What makes meat-eating plants different is their special leaves, which need insects for one reason: nitrogen(氮). Nitrogen is a nutrient(营养物质) that they can’t obtain any other way. Why?
Almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil. Meat-eating plants can’t. They live in places where nutrients are hard or almost impossible to get from the soil because of its acidity .So they’ve come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soil is poisonous to meat-eating plants. Never fertilize(施肥) them! But don’t worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they’ll grow very slowly.
According to the passage, Venus flytrap .
A.is a small plant which grows in a container |
B.is a kind of plant which gets hungry easily |
C.can trap and feed on some form of insects |
D.grows 6-8 inches tall |
From the passage, we can infer that .
A.meat-eating plants are found nowhere else except Antarctica |
B.All green plants get nitrogen from the soil |
C.meat-eating plants endanger humans in science-fiction stories |
D.The nutrient-poor soil is beneficial to meat-eating plants |
Meat-eating plants grow very slowly, .
A.so you’d better fertilize them |
B.probably because the supply of nitrogen is cut off |
C.simply because they can’t absorb nitrogen from the soil |
D.and then they will die slowly |
Which of the following is true?
A.Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants. |
B.It’ hard to get nutrients in the soil when acidity is high. |
C.Venus flytrap eats flies to get nutrient from them. |
D.Green plants make sugar at night. |