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Carnivorous Plants in the Wilderness
by Makoto Honda
 
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Sarracenia minor                                                                                                                                           © 2009 Makoto Honda. All Rights Reserved

 







One of the frequent visitors to this hooded pitcher plant is the bee, moving from one pitcher to another in search of nectar secretions.  In pitcher plants in general, a field observation shows that many insect visitors to the pitcher do leave the plant without being caught.  This leads to the notion that the pitcher plants provide nectar for a certain insect community in a mutually beneficial way, thus forming "mutualism" -- The insect community receives nectar from the pitcher plants in exchange for a small portion of the community being sacrificed as prey.  

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