Pitcher Plant

Pitcher Plant, common name for three families of flowering dicot plants (see Dicots), members of which have leaves modified as pitchers for trapping and digesting insects. The entire leaves of all these plants are tubular and hollow and lined with downward-pointing hairs. When an insect enters, it cannot climb back out against the hairs and ultimately falls to the bottom of the leaf, to be digested by juices contained there. Pitcher plants typically occur in poor soils and depend partly on nutrients obtained from the digested insects.

The most common pitcher plants are the members of a genus of eight species found in eastern North America, and the California pitcher plant, native to northern California and the coastal Pacific Northwest. The family of East Indian pitcher plants contains only one genus of about 75 species, found in tropical Asia. The family of Australian pitcher plants contains a single species, which is native to Australia. See Insectivorous Plants.

Scientific classification: The three families of pitcher plants are Sarraceniaceae, Nepenthaceae, and Cephalotaceae. The most common genus is Sarracenia of the family Sarraceniaceae. The California pitcher plant belongs to the family Sarraceniaceae and is classified as Darlingtonia californica. The genus Nepenthes belongs to the family Nepenthaceae. The family Cephalotaceae contains the single species classified as Cephalotus follicularis.