9 Weirdest And Most Interesting Plants That Will Leave You Wonderstruck

Plants play an enormous role in the world’s ecosystem, supporting life as we know it. They are nature’s ornaments, decorating our forests, deserts, and jungles in all shapes and sizes and all the colors of the spectrum. Some plants combine colors and shapes that are breathtakingly beautiful. Others seem to have sprung from the minds of science fiction writers and don’t seem to be of this Earth.

When you think of plants, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Beautiful bouquets? Delicate, fragrant petals?

This is typically what people think of when they think of plants.

But, Mother Nature knows no bounds, and you may be surprised by the weird and wonderful types of plants she has created.

If you decide to travel around the world, you will run into some pretty interesting plant. Here are 10 Weirdest and Most Interesting Plants That Will Leave You Wonderstruck.

1. Rat-Eating Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes attenboroughii)

Only the most innocuous pitcher plants are unusual and beautiful, but the species discovered in August 2009 may still be the strangest carnivorous plant yet. This is believed to be world’s largest meat-eating herb, and is capable of digesting rats. Scientists discovered it on the Philippines’ Mount Victoria, and named it after the famous nature broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

2. Euphorbia obesa: The Baseball Plant

Euphorbia Obesa, also known as the Baseball Plant, is endemic to the Great Karoo region of South Africa. Unsustainable harvesting by plant collectors who value Euphorbia obesa for its interesting and curious appearance has severely impacted wild populations.

Consequently, national and international legislation has been enacted to protect the remaining populations. While Euphorbia obesa remains endangered in its native habitat, it has become very common in cultivation. By growing large numbers of Euphorbia obesa, nurseries and botanical gardens have been working to ensure that specimens being traded and sold among plant collectors are not obtained from the wild.

3. Venus Flytrap

It’s carnivorous. Not many plants eat things other than sunlight (though you’ll see a few in the list below). Even fewer (about four species) are capable of rapid movement. This makes the Venus Flytrap seem like it might be from another planet. Actually, it’s from boggy areas of North and South Carolina, where the soil is poor in nutrients. It craves a high-nitrogen snack once in a while.

You might wonder how the trap is triggered. Well, with trigger hairs. When two hairs are touched within 20 seconds of each other or, if a single hair is touched twice, the trap snaps shut. Healthier Venus Flytraps close quicker. Scientists are unsure about the mechanism (it has to do with neighbouring cells sending chemical messages to each other).

The plant’s “jaws” act like interlocking fingers or, to the insect inside, prison bars. They do their best to restrain the insect from escaping. Then digestive juices break down the insect’s body.

4. Welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis)

This might just look like a pile of leaves to you, but trust us, it’s a real plant! Instead of having a “pile of leaves” is actually just two leaves that get torn and tattered over time. This plant is well adapted to the deserts where it grows and it lives for a really long time, with some plants living to be 1,500 years old!

The plant is said to be very tasty either raw or baked in hot ashes, and this is how it got its other name, Onyanga, which means onion of the desert.

5. Hydnora Africana

This plant isn’t just unattractive, rising out of the ground like the head of a blind sea snake and opening its jaws to the world. It smells like feces, too. A parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of other species, Hydnora Africana emits its pungent odor to attract carrion beetles and dung beetles, its natural pollinators.

6. Amorphophallus titanum: the Corpse Flower

A flower taller than a man, stinking strongly of putrefying roadkill and colored deep burgundy to mimic rotting flesh, sounds like something from a low-budget science fiction movie.

But Indonesia’s titan arum—or “corpse flower,” as known by locals—is a real, if rare, phenomenon, pollinated in the wild by carrion-seeking insects. This Indonesian plant, called titan arum or amorphophallus titanium, has the world’s biggest inflorescence. Due to its fragrance, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the Titan Arum is also known as a carrion flower, the “Corpse flower”, or “Corpse plant”.

7. Flypaper Plant (Pinguicula gigantea)

Commons) Call them opportunists, but butterworts – also known as flypaper plants – will grab hold of anything that lands on their leaves and immediately start digesting it.

The upper surface of the plant is covered in sticky digestive enzymes to trap victims like mosquitoes and gnats, but it can also absorb nutrients from pollen.

8. Strangler fig

The strangler fig, described by Science magazine as a “parasitic nightmare,” lives up to its name. The plant can be found in Australia and can grow upward and downward on its host.

When the fig grows downward, it robs its host, usually a living tree, of its nutrients. When the fig grows upward, it leaves block sunlight from reaching the host. The strangler fig can outlive the host tree by years.

9. Hammer Orchid :Drakaea glyptodon

This endangered orchid from western Australia gets pollinated in a unique way. Female thynnid wasps happen to be flightless. They also happen to climb on top of plants to signal to the male wasps, who can fly. The male picks them up and does his thing to reproduce with them during flight. The Drakaea glyptodon mimicks the female thynnid wasp’s body.

The male wasp tries to pick up the fake female wasp and, instead, gets pitched into a mass of pollen. To actually finish pollinating a plant and keep this orchid species going, he has to come in contact with yet another Drakea glyptodon and try to mate with it. So, he has to be fooled twice. Also, the plant smells like raw meat. It kind of looks like it, too.