• Question: what do you think is the most dangerous and exciting plants and why ? personally I like a Venus-flytrap.

    Asked by anon-218611 to Shannah, Richard, Matthew (known as Kaan by, johnpaterson, Emma, Anna on 17 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-218615.
    • Photo: John Paterson

      John Paterson answered on 17 Jun 2019:

      I love insectivorous (insect-eating) plants like the Venus fly-trap too. There’s another really cool one called the bladderwort, which you get here in the UK, which grows in bogs and has these tiny capsules like bubbles in its roots, which are underwater. When tiny microscopic insects swim past these roots the capsules suck the insects in like a vacuum cleaner.

      When I was younger I used to have a book that claimed there may be even bigger and weirder insect-eating plants we hadn’t discovered yet. It had a picture of a big plant with a toothy mouth that was holding up a man with its vines and shaking salt and pepper on him because he was about to get munched by the plant. I always thought that was really cool but unfortunately I don’t think there are any plants out there like that, I think we probably would have found them by now!

    • Photo: Emma Markham

      Emma Markham answered on 17 Jun 2019:

      This is a great question but difficult to answer.
      Plants can be dangerous in lots of ways, for example cactus have spines, stinging nettles have hairs which inject chemicals under your skin, Deadly nightshade is poisonous if you eat it, almonds contain cyanide which is deadly. Tobacco produces nicotine on the leaves which acts as an insecticide, but is addictive to people when we smoke it and smoking leads to a high number of deaths each year.Venus flytraps and pitcher plants both consume insects to obtain nitrogen, as this is not available in the wet soil where it grows. (Personally, I love venus flytraps, as they seem like they have a personality). So it depends if you are touching the plant or eating it, and if you are counting the number of people who die every year or just the plant which is the most poisonous.

      You can find out more about deadly plants here:
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150817-earths-most-poisonous-plants

      https://www.britannica.com/list/7-of-the-worlds-deadliest-plants

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