Audrey 2
- Written by Jack Lord
You remember Audrey 2. She had a big personality, a remarkable talent for show-stopping musical numbers, and an even bigger, more remarkable appetite for human flesh; especially humans who irritated her.
She was that giant alien plant who ended up taking over a florist shop in the 1986 Rick Moranis film “Little Shop of Horrors”. Of course Audrey II was a visitor from another planet, which is pretty much where you would have to go to see such an extraordinary critter.
The nearest bog to the Hamilton area is the Summit Muskeg Preserve on Highway 52 just south of Copetown. It is well worth a field trip. Among its denizens are the pitcher-plant and the sundew.
Having said that, we actually do have meat-eating plants right here on Earth, they just don’t eat humans. But they are among the most intriguing members of the plant kingdom, and in some parts of Canada you don’t need to go far from home to find them.
Probably the most famous and active of all plant carnivores is not native to our area but can sometimes be found as a novelty in florist shops and garden centers. The Venus fly trap is a native of the coastal plain of the Carolinas where, unfortunately, it is in danger of extinction. The leaves of this plant are hinged and the margins of the leaves are fringed with stiff bristles. In the center of each leaf are trigger hairs which are so sensitive and precise that they can distinguish between an insect and the impact of a falling rain drop. When an insect touches a trigger hair, the hinge is activated and the leaf closes, sandwiching the insect inside. The marginal bristles interlock preventing escape as effectively as bars on a cage. The leaf then secretes enzymes that slowly dissolve the body proteins of the hapless victim.
The pitcher-plant traps insects by design, not by movement.
We actually do have meat-eating plants right here on Earth, they just don’t eat humans.
Our local plant carnivores also eat insects, and in one case, small invertebrates. Although there are various ingenious mechanisms, none is quite as dramatic as that of the fly trap. A member of the same family as the fly trap, the pitcher-plant traps insects by design, not by movement. Leaves which grow in a rosette, are highly modified to form long slender pitcher-shaped containers. Each pitcher collects a small amount of rain water. The inner surfaces are covered with stiff downward pointing bristles and glands around the pitcher lip secrete a substance attractive to insects. An insect crawling very easily down the inside surface will find it virtually impossible to climb back out. The prey eventually drowns and is digested by enzymes secreted into the water at the bottom of the pitcher.
The sundew also has a rosette of leaves but these are flat, pad-like, and covered with stalked glands which produce tiny droplets of a glistening insect attractant (hence the name). This extremely sticky fluid grips like fly paper. The struggling of an ensnared insect activates the gland stalks which bend inward, passing the insect to the center of the leaf where it is held firmly against the surface while the enzymes do their work. Death by slow torture!
