Mountain Flower From China Joins the World’s Carnivorous Plant Club

Researchers have identified a delicate wildflower in China's southwestern mountains as the first confirmed carnivorous plant within its botanical grouping. This delicate alpine plant, named Saxifraga candelabrum, defies expectations by luring insects onto sticky hairs, digesting them, and absorbing the resulting nutrients.

This remarkable discovery places Saxifraga candelabrum within the Saxifragales order, a diverse taxonomic category comprising over 2,000 species. The plant thrives in nutrient-poor, rocky environments on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Hengduan Mountains, at elevations between 2,500 and 3,300 meters. Its unique carnivorous adaptation involves specialized sticky reddish glandular hairs that effectively trap small insects.

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We ran multiple tests on this plant and finally confirmed it is a real insect-eating plant. This proves Darwin's guess was correct, and shows how sharp his scientific judgment was.

Carnivorous plants are typically associated with swamps and wetlands, where species like Venus flytraps and pitcher plants supplement nutrient-poor diets by capturing prey. To be classified as truly carnivorous, a plant must not only accidentally trap insects but also absorb nutrients from them and possess specialized adaptations for attracting, trapping, digesting, and consuming prey. The sticky hairs of Saxifraga candelabrum serve this purpose, trapping insects that meet an unfortunate end.

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Nitrogen is essential for plant growth. Most carnivorous plants live in nitrogen-poor habitats and obtain nitrogen by capturing and digesting insects.

This finding lends significant support to naturalist Charles Darwin's 1875 hypothesis. Darwin had speculated that two European Saxifraga species might be carnivorous due to their sticky hairs and occasional insect victims, though he could not experimentally prove it. The newly studied plant, while a different species from those Darwin examined, is closely related and shares the insect-trapping structures that inspired his theory. "We ran multiple tests on this plant and finally confirmed it is a real insect-eating plant. This proves Darwin's guess was correct, and shows how sharp his scientific judgment was," said Hang Sun, a research professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Kunming Institute of Botany and a lead author of the study published in Nature Communications.

Researchers used fruit flies fed enriched food to track nitrogen uptake, a key element for plant growth, especially in nitrogen-poor habitats where carnivorous plants often reside. "Nitrogen is essential for plant growth. Most carnivorous plants live in nitrogen-poor habitats and obtain nitrogen by capturing and digesting insects," Sun explained. The study tracked the movement of this enriched nitrogen into the plant's tissues, confirming nutrient absorption. Notably, the highest concentrations of prey-derived nitrogen were found in the flowers of Saxifraga candelabrum, a species that reproduces only once in its lifetime, suggesting a critical role for insect nutrients in its reproductive cycle.

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That would not happen unless there is uptake or movement into the plant.