2008 the Curious World of Carnivorous Plants
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Plant Science Bulletin 54(4) 2008 The Curious World of Carnivorous Plants: A that was open for over two months! If unpollinated, comprehensive guide to their biology and some female flowers of Nepenthes can remain cultivation by Wilhelm Barthlott, Stefan Porembski, viable for several weeks. Rüdiger Seine, Inge Thiesen [Translated by Michael Ashdown]. Timber Press: Portland. 224 pages, 158 This book is, however, not without problems. The illustrations, 2 maps. ISBN-13: 9780881927924, authors use archaic terminology. Describing taxa ISBN-10: 0881927929. US$39.95. as primitive or advanced, instead of ancestral and derived, carries too much pejorative baggage. This is an exquisite book, truly covering both biology Contrary to standard usage for at least a quarter and cultivation of carnivorous plants. It provides an century, the authors consider lichens and fungi to up-to-date review of scientific work on these plants, be plants. The authors use the term “precarnivorous” much of it done by the authors. It also contains a lot for plants that do not meet all their criteria for of obscure older references. The photos are carnivory, such as bromeliads that catch and kill remarkable. While not particularly artistic - there are insects in cisterns (pitchers) but do not have digestive no gorgeous panoramas with these plants, as can enzymes, instead relying on bacteria for digestion. be found in other recent volumes, such as Stewart This is like saying that termites do not eat wood or McPherson’s Pitcher Plants of the Americas - cows do not eat grass because they rely on microbes Barthlott et al. provide photos with such lush detail for their digestion. Furthermore, the term that you can really begin to understand the intricacies precarnivorous is a teleological nightmare in that it of these plants. needlessly implies that descendants of these plants will evolve what the authors call true carnivory. This book begins with curious and far-ranging history, that covers everything from the first The authors assert correctly that carnivorous leaves suspicions of carnivory, to the not-so-subtle sexual and (non-carnivorous) flowers use the same innuendo in the binomial of the Venus flytrap, to mechanisms to attract insects. They then claim that Charles Darwin, and molecular systematics. After carnivorous plants have tall inflorescences to keep a short digression into distributions and diversity, pollinators from being eaten. This is a too the authors move on to six lovely chapters on how adaptationist—and untested. Moreover, the carnivorous plants make a living: attracting, trapping, cosmopolitan Drosera rotundifolia has relatively and digesting their meals, sometimes with the help short inflorescences. of other organisms. After another short digression into conservation and cultivation, the book launches Disturbingly, this book does not contain information into chapters on each family of carnivorous plant, on ISBN, year of publication, place of publication, or although the terms “carnivorous”and “plant” are information on who did the translation from the used liberally. 2004 German text. I had to go to the publisher¹s website for most of this information, although I still The book is filled with fascinating details. Although could not easily locate the year of publication. Lack Darwin titled his seminal monograph “Insectivorous of information on the translator is particularly Plants,” many carnivorous plants have diets disturbing because of errors in botanical composed of things other than insects or even other nomenclature (e.g., Discocactus horstii absorbs arthropods. Although it will hardly surprise anyone water via spines, not thorns) and failure to detect that bladderworts (Utricularia) eat rotifers (which silly errors, such as in the etymology of Heliamphora, curiously do not appear in the index), they also eat and confusion between figures 26 and 27. There is mollusks and protists, including algae. Many also the odd production maneuver of filling up blank carnivorous plants eat a fair amount of pollen, with space with uncaptioned repeats of photos that have some butterworts (Pinguicula) making up 70% or been used elsewhere in the book. I am not sure if more of their catch in pollen. Barthlott, who has done lack of care with production is attributable to Timber much work with epiphytic cacti, also highlights Press, the last great independent North American epiphytic carnivorous plants. Utricularia reniformis botanical publisher, having been recently acquired can grow epiphytically on tussocks of grass. by Storey and Workman Publishing. However, such Utricularia nelumbifolia and U. humboldtii grow essential information, especially full credit to the epiphytically in the water-filled rosettes of translator, needs to be given. bromeliads, where they can spread vegetatively from bromeliad to bromeliad, including the Regardless of these shortfalls, this is a superb carnivorous bromeliad genus Brocchinia. Some book, at a reasonable price, that beautifully covers Nepenthes and Pinguicula species are also both biology and horticulture of a group of plants that epiphytes, including P. lignicola, which only grows have fascinated people for centuries. on pines. The authors also report some amazing Root Gorelick, Ph.D., Department of Biology and observations about longevity of single flowers. School of Mathematics & Statistics, Carleton Utricularia meziesii in cultivation had a single flower University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6 Canada 159.