Purpose

To find structures that carnivorous plants may use to trap and kill insects.

Problem

I don´t know what structures do carnivorous plants use to trap and kill insects.

Hypothesis

If I use a Foldscope to see the inside of a carnivorous plant, then I will be able to find

structures that carnivorous  plants use to trap insects.

Materials

-Foldscope

-Slides

-Light source

-Pelican flower ( Aristolochia grandiflora ), a carnivore eating plant.

Procedure

• Find a Pelican flower
• Cut the carnivore eating plant open, and collect specimens from the inside
• Put a sample of the carnivore eating plant in a slide
• Put the slide in the Foldscope
• Put the Foldscope in the light source
• Observe how the structures of the carnivore eating plant look like.
• Record your observations.

Results and Observations

I noticed that the plant had a tube. When I opened it, I saw little hairs, so I put them in the

Foldscope. The hairs looked like white filaments (Pictures 1 and 2). I think that when the

insects go through the tube they get trapped because the hairs stop them from going back out.

Then, from the  tube, they go to the inside of the plant. There I saw other hairs, but they were

black. When I saw them in the Foldscope they also looked like filaments (Pictures 3 and 4), so

I think that these filaments also trap the insects, but this is where they kill them so that the

plant can eat them.

Conclusions

The hypothesis was correct. When I used the Folscope to see the inside of the carnivorous plant,

I saw hair-like structures that may serve for trapping and killing insects.

Lab originally created by:

Natalia Une Gross

7th Grade Methodist High School

San José, Costa Rica