The Lure of Carnivorous Plants

　　ABOUT 200 million years ago, certain plants with strange leaves showed up on what became the eastern half of North America. Because they grew in marshy, infertile soil, they had to devise other ways to find nutrients. And so they began to catch and eat bugs.

Flash-forward to today, and these carnivorous plants are now luring more than insects; they’re attracting adventurous gardeners.
“Sales have increased every year since 2007,” said Jason Austin, the manager of RareFind Nursery in Jackson, N.J., and a man so passionate about carnivorous plants that he has a tattoo of one on his arm. Referring to a program he runs for customers interested in the plants, he added: “Our first workshop was in summer 2008. We did one that year. We now do 10 or so.”

Of course, people have long been drawn to these weird but lovable plants, enthralled by visions of man-eaters out of “Little Shop of Horrors.” There’s the Venus’ flytrap, for instance, with its hinged leaves like tiny jaws that snap shut around its prey; the sundew, which attracts insects with beads of jewellike sticky gel on its leaves; and the bladderwort, which uses vacuum action to suck bugs into its underwater traps. These and other carnivorous plants (or “insectivorous,” as Darwin wrote in his 1875 book on them) have digestive enzymes that liquefy the captured prey so that the nutrients can be absorbed.
But the basic requirements of these somewhat fussy plants have often been neglected by buyers. The finicky flytraps that were sold as novelties in gift shops rarely survived for very long, and Robert Hoffman, the owner of Fairweather Gardens nursery in Greenwich, N.J., remembers one seller of terrariums who advertised the baby carnivorous plants within them as “lasting longer than cut flowers.” (The plants have a long history of being misunderstood. Until 1815, botanists thought the hollow leaves were not traps for insects, but refuges.)The new interest stands that old attitude on its head. Nurseries are now emphasizing the plants’ needs, teaching gardeners proper techniques for their care and developing hybrids that increase the plants’ vigor and range of color and form. Concern about the conservation of native flora may be propelling this change, or maybe gardeners are just rising to a new horticultural challenge, but either way, these specimens are beginning to be recognized as the long-lived perennials they are rather than being seen as transient novelties.
The change may well help sales. Like Mr. Austin, Mr. Hoffman has enjoyed a recent upsurge in buyers. “In 2010, we sold one or two of some of the varieties,” he said. “In 2011, we sold out — mostly to men and boys.”
“What we discovered,” Mr. Austin said, “is that showing people how to succeed with these plants and increasing their knowledge base has helped tremendously.”
In their new efforts, some nurseries are focusing on one particular carnivorous genera: Sarracenia, or the pitcher plants. They are among the easiest of carnivorous plants to grow.
Sarracenia are attractive, funnel-shaped, often prettily veined plants with leaves and flowers in a wide spectrum of colors. Most have hoods above their flaring tubular leaves to keep rainwater out, and a spot of nectar at the base of the hoods to lure insects. The bugs land, slip on the slick surface and fall into the tubes, which have downward-facing hairs to thwart any escape attempts.
Pitcher plants form clumps, with leaves emerging from a central rosette in spring or summer; they range from 6 to 36 inches tall. Most bloom in spring, and sometimes again in late summer. The plants also feature nodding flower stems with umbrella-shaped blossoms and dangling petals. The petals fall after pollination, but the plants’ fascinating ornamental fruits and the seeds within them persist right up until autumn.