These Flowers Are Actually Serial Killers, Time To See Their Victims

People find it fair to kill for food. Stronger animals murder their weaker ‘brothers’ to survive. This food chain works for ages and we find it normal. However, when it comes to flowers, we consider them absolutely harmless.

Have you ever heard about plants killing the other plants to survive? How about live beings being eaten by carnivores? No? This list will turn your world upside down. Meet the most dangerous ‘serial killers’ with roots and leaves.

1. Aldrovanda vesiculosa

Commonly known as the waterwheel plant, this ‘cutie’ captures small aquatic invertebrates using traps whorls around a central, free-floating stem. The plant is so smart, it awaits for its victim to get inside and then blocks it with a single rapid movement.

To close such trap usually takes about 10 milliseconds. After that, the monster sucks the life out of its victim and grows bigger thanks to it.

2. Nepenthes

This one is also known as tropical pitcher plants or monkey cups, as zoologists often spot monkeys drinking rainwater out of them. But for this cute peculiarity, Nepenthes is extremely dangerous.

This liana-forming flower has traps that contain fluids of the plant’s own production. Watery or syrupy, it attracts insects and even small animals, such as rats or lizards, which get inside of these cups to never come back. The flower ‘eats’ them to get stronger.

3. Dionaea Muscipula

This one became too popular over the past ten years. I bet you have met one at your friends’ apartments at least once. The flower looks cool and serves to kill flies and other nasty insects. Although the only thing that ruins its reputation is awful meat smell it spreads to attract victims.

Also called a Venus flytrap, it catches insects thanks to a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant’s leaves. As soon as anyone steps on it – the trap closes with no chance for caught objects to escape. We can only thank it’s not of enough size to catch one of us.

4. Darlingtonia Californica

The California pitcher plant, cobra lily, or cobra plant, unlike previously mentioned flowers, uses no open-close mechanism for catching its guests. Unlike its brothers and sisters, cobra lily lures insects inside thanks to the sunshine, passing through its walls. Downward-pointing hairs force their prey into the trap.

This species carefully hides the tiny exit hole from trapped insects by curling it underneath and offering multiple translucent false exits. This is why cobra plants are often stuffed with insects and their remains.

5. Drosera

The longer I look at this cutie, the more I believe those tentacles from anime were designed thanks to it. Drosera captures, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow.

This flower is capable of moving all its leaves towards the caught insects giving them zero chance to escape.