Bladderwort

This week's plant is bladderwort, which is a actually a carnivorous species. Well, insectivorous, to be more precise. They, like other insectivorous plants, passively capture and digest insects and other arthropods. They do not feed on squirrel, quail, or other small game.

Bladderworts are more or less limited to what they can ingest/digest by the size of their "bladders" (see picture below). So they don't really even "eat" very big insects. The dark bladders probably have an insect inside and the clear-ish, green-ish ones probably don't.



Bladderworts are restricted to aquatic environments, so they're not in the forest as much as they are in the drainage ditches next to the forest. Oh well, got to keep this interesting...and these guys do.

They have a fairly complex method of capturing insects. Bladderworts actually maintain a vacuum in their bladders. When an insect moves past the opening (closed at this point) in the bladder, it usually trips a trigger hair and a thin layer of cells flings open. Water is pulled in because of the vacuum and the insect gets sucked in, too. Here is closer view of the bladders.

One other quick note - notice that bladderwort is green. Insectivorous plants get most of their energy from the sun, not from insects. Why eat them, then? You might think of it as a dietary supplement, usually for nitrogen.

By the way, the second part of the name, "wort" is really just an old English name for plant. So, "Bladderplant" could just as easily be the title of this post.

This ditch was full of them and probably a few cottonmouths. Don't worry moms, I checked before pulling up a sample.