Tropical pitcher plants are well-named plants. They’re also not quite what they appear to be.
You may think the pitcher is a flower, but it’s actually a leaf. The small flowers grow above the pitcher and look like an upside down umbrella. They appear briefly in the spring.
There are around 100 plants in the Nepenthes genus, and they have one thing in common: they eat insects. If you grow a tropical pitcher plant, you can feed it diluted fertilizer or live and dried insects.
These tropical plants are native to parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, Madagascar, and India. Many pitcher plants grow on other plants instead of in the soil. They are known as ‘epiphytes.’
Tropical pitcher plants can be propagated outside in warm climates, but also do well as houseplants. This plant was thriving at the Volunteer Park Conservatory in Seattle, Washington.
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