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Stylidium - Protocarnivore or True Carnivore?


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Yes, the Stylidium, it isn't normally carnivorous but recent studies show that they produce digestive enzymes, but, it is unknown if they take in the nutrients.

The tip of the trichome produces a sticky muscilage--a mixture of sugar polymers and water--that is capable of attracting and suffocating small insects. Recent research has revealed that these trichomes do produce digestive enzymes, specifically proteases like other carnivorous plants. It is still unknown, however, whether the plants absorb the nutrients created by the protease activity on the captured insects. If they are able engage in nutrient uptake, Stylidium species would be considered truly carnivorous and would significantly increase the number of carnivorous plants.

Has anyone grown them? If they produce digestive enzymes, then why? If they were simply defending themselves then why the enzymes? I consider it a true carnivore in this way, because Darlingtonia and most Heliamphora don't produce enzymes, but take in the nutrient.

Are Stylidium rare in cultivation as well? Or hard?

State your opinions on the matter, I think it's a good debate. I don't know if this belongs here... so if a Mod could move it if it isn't in the right place >.< sorry.

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Hello necifix :oops: .

I'm not fully aware of the ongoing debate on Stylidium species but i grow the quite well known Stylidium debile in tropical conditions.

It's a fairly easy and beautiful species which spreads like a weed!

Friendly,

François.

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Doug Darnowski and his students at Indiana University Southeast, USA, are the team that discovered protease enzyme activity in the sticky glands of the flower stems Stylidium see:

Darnowski, D.W., Carroll, D.M., Plachno, B., Kabanoff, E., Cinnamon, E. 2006, Evidence of Protocarnivory in Triggerplants (Stylidium spp.; Stylidiaceae). Plant Biology. 8: 1-8. Abstract

Doug presented his research findings to date at the ICPS Conference in Frostburg last June and I had the opportunity to discuss the subject with Doug at the Conference:

In summary, some trigger plants regularly catch small insects on their glandular scapes in habitat and produce digestive enzymes. They have yet to show that digested prey nutrients are actually abosorbed by the plant and have plans to use radio-label studies to investigate this - I, for one, eagerly await the results of these future investigations.

In my opinion, it seems more likely that some trigger plants could be partly carnivorous compared to many of the other plants with sticky glands which are often considered as candidates for carnivory. Trigger plants frequently grow in the same wet, acidic and nutriently poor soils as sundews, often side by side, so would benefit from additional nutrients at the time they are using a lot for reproduction. As an evolutionary ecologist, I have trouble accepting that plants which grow in fairly nutrient rich soils would gain much competitively from carnivory and doubt that there would be enough selection pressure for true carnivory to evolve. However, this isn't the case with Stylidiums.

I also grow Stylidium debile and it's a very easy plant when grown in the same soil and conditions as easy sundews. I would love to try a few more species if anyone out there wants to swap some for mexican Pings? :)

Vic

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I wonder if anyone could do any studies, I'm sure it's not very hard, to see if it absorbs them, even here!

It'd probably get you a bit famous for discovering 150+ new carnivores (I think there are of so amount of Stylidium)

I'm going to get a Stylidium Debile and see if theres any way I could try in the summer or spring.

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'I wonder if anyone could do any studies, I'm sure it's not very hard, to see if it absorbs them, even here! '

Heh! I'll just pop down to 'Radio-isotopes R Us' in the morning and pick up the necessary radioactive material and while I'm about it, the ultra-sensitive, highly expensive, detection equipment that I'll need too. Then there might just be some sort of goverment controls on who gets this sort of stuff to play with .............etc etc.

Vic

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Most Stylidiums grow in the same conditions as tuberous and pygmy Drosera. Some grow in boggy habitats but most in drier seasonally wet soils.

From what I am aware, those that are considered a chance to be carnivorous are mostly those that grow in northern Australia and so would prove harder to cultivate than the majority of species that grow in south western WA.

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Why would Stylidium want to exert digestive fluid if it wasn't carnivorous, and it does grow in poor nutrient bogs.

Do you believe that if it was that simple, biologists wouldn't have discovered it?? Nature is sometimes more complex than it seems and other times it's more simple than it seems. For example, maybe they have a complex relationship-symbiosis with some bacteria or other microorganisms or even some multicellular organisms.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

I read something (possibly in "Triggerplants", or the aforementioned scientific publication by Doug Darnowski) that said the production of the trichomes on the flower scapes, pedicels, and sepals may be a way to trap and digest insects to help supplement nutrients needed during the flowering phase, and also possibly to shuttle nutrients into developing seeds. I believe Levenhookia will also display carnivorous characteristics, since it has the glandular trichomes and is closely related to Stylidium. I'm wondering, though, if digestive enzymes are present in the trichome secretions on the leaves of Stylidium species like S. semipartitum; if so, could be a species that traps and kills insects on the scape and at ground level. I know Doug Darnowski is doing intensive work with them right now, such as hardiness testing, hybridization experiments, tissue culture, etc. I highly recommend "Triggerplants", because it changed my life; that's right, I can cancel my appearances on Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer (they'll be so disappointed). If people join the Stylidium group, run through Yahoo, they can get directly in touch with Mr. Darnowski, and can order seeds (of Levenhookia and Stylidium spp.), Stylidium debile plants (a little on the small side, but necessary for shipping), his book (signed, for cheap), Utricularia spp., Genlisea hispidula cuttings, Aldrovanda, even Nymphaea (waterlily) seedlings. Very cool guy. Not sure if he ships overseas, but probably possible with seeds and books. Ebay is another good one; there's a store called Kenni Koala's Aussie Seed Store that sells lots of Stylidium seeds for dirt cheap, and they're even shipped with growing instructions and a small piece of smoke seed primer paper in the jeweler's bag with the seeds. Take care, sleep tight, eat your vitamins, say your prayers, yadda yadda. :nuke:

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I was given two pots of S. debile this spring. One I kept at a window sill and the other I put outside. Neither pot grows fast, although the window sill plants are bigger than the ones outside. I just shipped two of them out and noticed that they had pretty long roots. Temps are roughly 60-80 F, tray method, sand/peat/perlite.

Not the greatest picture, but...

Phoyos090.jpg

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I was given two pots of S. debile this spring. One I kept at a window sill and the other I put outside. Neither pot grows fast, although the window sill plants are bigger than the ones outside. I just shipped two of them out and noticed that they had pretty long roots. Temps are roughly 60-80 F, tray method, sand/peat/perlite.

Scott,

I have to say the opposite about the pot I have on my windowsill. They grow and multiply very quickly.

Maybe the difference was my plant I received was much larger then the one you have pictured.

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Most Stylidiums grow in the same conditions as tuberous and pygmy Drosera. Some grow in boggy habitats but most in drier seasonally wet soils.

From what I am aware, those that are considered a chance to be carnivorous are mostly those that grow in northern Australia and so would prove harder to cultivate than the majority of species that grow in south western WA.

Does S. debile require a dormancy? Is it temperate, sub-tropical, or tropical?

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Another link from Barry's page:

http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5760.html

very nice to see how the plant moves, here:

http://icps.proboards105.com/index.cgi?act...1646&page=1

Edited by Amar
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Thanks for the links. I don't know why, but my plants, in two pots, now both outdoors, don't grow like weeds nor will they flower. But then again, I believe they got their starts this spring. Maybe next year?

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is just a thought (and sort of has been touched on already), but since this plant has that trigger thing on the flower, couldn't the catching of insects on the flower help with that mechanism? I mean like, that probably uses energy every time the trigger goes off, so the carnivory could just supply that trigger mechanism with nutrients.

-Ben

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  • 2 weeks later...

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