David Attenborough Explains: World's Craziest Plants

this bug will soon become a leaf [Applause] it's no ordinary leaf [Music] it has a special altogether more Sinister purpose this is nepenthes the pitcher plant [Applause] grows in nutrient poor soils so has to find nitrogen and minerals in another way [Music] the leaf just like a flower attracts insects with a reward the picture is colored and scented to appeal to flies looking for a meal of Rotting Flesh the visitors are rewarded with a greasy substance on the underside of the pitcher's lid foreign but the plant wants something in return not pollen but a meal the lip of the pitcher is covered in tiny slippery ridges [Music] wax lubricates the surface further [Music] it's extremely difficult to hold on even for a fly [Music] once inside There's No Escape the leaf holds a pool of digestive liquid this contains microscopic elastic filaments which give it the properties of quicksand the more the insect struggles the deeper it sinks enzymes begin to dissolve the victim's body while it's still alive some pictures aren't content with just insects this one eats mice the mice come along perhaps attracted by the sweet nectar on the lip they fall in they can't get a purchase to get out they drown and eventually the enzymes in the pictures fluid dissolves the body so that eventually there's nothing left but a bit of fur and bones if the temperature raises to 32 degrees Centigrade those substances in the leaves of this cystus plant from the Mediterranean can spontaneously burst into Flame [Music] [Music] Flames reduce assistance to a cinder and the plant itself will never recover it's not a disastrous accident the sisters evolved to burn such extraordinary sacrifice ensures a different kind of survival survival of its offspring the Flames will also destroy all other plants from the surrounding area and this gives the sisters a chance to extend its territory from Darwin described this plant as one of the most wonderful in the world it's a native of the coastal plains of North and South Carolina in America the Venus flytrap it catches insects with booby traps at the top the leaves are baited with a sweet nectar but lower down there are a few upright bristles triggers many things might accidentally touch one of them so a single touch has no effect but a fly crawling around on the leaves sipping the nectar is likely to touch more than one of the bristles and if it touches two within 20 seconds that's different [Music] [Applause] it may look like a tree but in reality this is just a single giant leaf [Music] it's called the Titan arum and it's a record breaker but not because of what you see now in a week or so that green stem and the leaflets that go on top will die and rot and disappear but beneath the surface of the soil there is a gigantic tuber and it's from that that the record breaker will emerge foreign this extraordinary event occurs just once every seven years it will take two months to complete [Music] [Music] but this new growth is neither a trunk nor a leaf it's the butt of the biggest flower in the world [Music] as it grows day after day a huge Spire the speedix rises from the center of the developing flower and then one evening as Darkness Falls over the forest giant flower opens [Music] this shopping is one of the most astonishing of blooms foreign [Music] there's a downside to success for a desert plant the more water it stores the more tempting it is for a thirsty animal to try and steal it so desert plants have to have good defenses the techniques they use can tell us something about the herbivores that try to feed on them [Music] this econopsis from Argentina develops long strong spines as the defense against large grazing animals llamas but such defenses also provide hiding places where an insect or a spider can keep out of Harm's Way there are other ways in which a plant can protect itself you can disguise yourself so that you become virtually invisible as these Stone plants have done these are not Pebbles as you might think they are living plants these are lithops from the deserts of Africa and they're markings closely match their surroundings what's more they vary in color according to the rocks on which they grow that's growing pale rocks and those and reddish rocks or you can load the water you contain with a particularly strong chemical which animals might find distasteful this is the peyote plant from Mexico and it's sap not only puts off animals but has the property of suppressing pain so the local people use it for that purpose and also in their religious rituals for it's also hallucinogenic foreign

Channel: Nature Bites

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Id: JFrnR6c6lbo

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022