Flypaper Plant (Pinguicula gigantea)
(image via: Wikimedia Commons) Call them opportunists, but butterworts – also known as flypaper plants – will grab hold of anything that lands on their leaves and immediately start digesting it. The upper surface of the plant is covered in sticky digestive enzymes to trap victims like mosquitoes and gnats, but it can also absorb nutrients from pollen.
Welwitschia mirabilis
If this desert plant looks like it came straight out of the age of dinosaurs, that’s because it did. Two succulent leaves continuously grow from the short, thick trunk, splitting over time into strap-shaped sections. The leaves can reach twelve feet in length. These odd plants are considered living fossils and can live up to 2,000 years.
Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum)
It’s the biggest flower in the world, and also the smelliest. The corpse flower, indigenous to the tropical forests of Sumatra, emits a pungent odor reminiscent of rotting flesh. Its central, phallus-shaped spadix warms to human body temperature during bloom to attract pollinators. The leaf structure of the flower can reach up to 20 feet tall and 16 feet wide.
Waterwheel Plant (Aldrovanda Vesiculosa)
(image via: CarnivorousPlants.org)
Closely related to the Venus flytrap, the aquatic, free-floating waterwheel plant
has similar snap-traps on the end of each ‘spoke’ emerging from the
main stem. Each trap is covered in ‘trigger hairs’ that cause the trap
to close when stimulated.
Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)
Wollemi pines have been around for at least 200 million years, but weren’t known to science until 2004, when a field officer at Wollemi National Park in Australia noticed what he thought was an ‘unusual specimen’. Fewer than 100 trees are known to be growing in the wild, but a propo
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