Plants Behaving Badly

Revel in the ethereal beauty of orchids and examine their exotic flowers, which are shaped for one purpose – to attract pollinators. Many use sex as a lure, impersonating a female bee or wasp.

Recently scientists have shown that many more plants are carnivorous than we ever thought. Welcome to the world of killer tomatoes and murderous potatoes. But even the more obvious carnivorous plants — sundews, flytraps and pitchers — are revealing new behavior. Carnivorous plants have featured in many sci-fi films over the years, but the reality turns out to be far stranger than the fiction.