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I was "working" on research for a paper i have to write when i decided to look up carnivorous plant on our britannica encylopedia cd-rom.  I read what it said and it all seemed correct.  Then i searched venus flytrap and found some bad mistakes.  Here's the article:

"Flowering perennial plant (Dionaea muscipula), sole member of its genus, in the sundew family, notable for its unusual habit of catching and eating insects and other small animals (see carnivorous plant).

Native to a small region of North and South Carolina, it is common in damp, mossy areas. Growing from a bulblike rootstock, the plant bears hinged leaves with spiny teeth along their margins and a round cluster of small white flowers at the tip of an erect stem 8-12 in. (20-30 cm) tall. When an insect alights on a leaf and stimulates its sensitive hairs, the leaf snaps shut in about half a second. Leaf glands secrete a
red sap that digests the insect's body and gives the entire leaf a red, flowerlike appearance. After 10 days of digestion, the leaf reopens. The trap dies after capturing three or four insects."

First, vfts are not in the sundew family. And second it is the sun that gives the trap a red coloring.


And then under sundew it said this:

"Any of about 100 species of annual and perennial flowering carnivorous plants in four genera, notably Drosera, that make up the family Droseraceae (sundew family).

Sundews are found throughout tropical and temperate regions. Their leaves are usually in a basal rosette. Both leaf surfaces are generally covered with sticky, gland-tipped hairs and sensitive tentacles that trap insects. After the trapped prey has been digested by enzymes secreted by the tentacles, the leaf reopens, resetting the trap. The best-known sundew is the Venus's-flytrap."

I thought an encyclopedia would have the correct info. since people use them to write reports and stuff but i guess that's not always true.
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             -buckeye
 
The Dionaea (Venus Flytrap) is in the Droseraceae family, so is the Aldrovanda, Drosophyllum and Drosera (sundew). But Droseraceae is in the Nepenthales Order. But that Venus Flytrap is not a sundew but it is in the same family. Hope that makes sense.

Jeremiah
 
oops.  I guess i'm the one who doesn't know what i'm talking about.  Sorry about that.  

The vft is in the sundew family but is not a sundew, right?  So that part in the sundew article that says a vft is sundew is wrong.  Is this right?

Thanks,

        -buckeye
 
I don't think it's the "sap" that makes the traps red. I'm pretty sure that the pigment is in the cells, its function being to protect the plant from UV radiation.
 
FYI: species classification:
Kingdom, Phylum, order, class, family, genous, species. I think I'm right on that.

VFT's are in the Sunder family, but a different genous.
Hope that helps.
 
Close, it is actually:

Kingdom, Phylum, class, order, family, genous, species
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But only us biology dorks know that LOL
 
DOH!
I think that was the part I missed 19 years ago in the 6th grade, too!
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  • #10
The encyclopedia should make it alot clearer that the VFT is not a sundew, they are just in the same family and make some sort of reminder that there are lots of different things in the same family, like other examples. I was confussed and thought they were way wrong at first too.
alien.gif
 
  • #11
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Close, it is actually:

Kingdom, Phylum, class, order, family, genous, species

But only us biology dorks know that LOL[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

 Yeah, it's one of the things I can spit out fom my un-used Biology degree without using a memory rhyme(like a teacher friend of mine does).

 Regards,

 Joe
 
  • #12
Although if you need a memory rhyme, my 9th grade biology teacher told us to remember :
King Philip Came Over From Greece Stoned
Of course at the time I had no idea what that meant. I'd love to see a teacher present that pneumonic in schools today.
 
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