Evolutionarily, there would be nothing stopping a plant from trapping for
consumption any and all non-pollenating insects as long as that did not
affect their target pollenator species.
Its a fascinating question: why haven't carnivores evolved to more directly
exploit the pollenating habits of insects? Or do the pitcher plants do this?
David
daviddog@aol.com
>Subject: Re: New CP???????????
>Message-ID: <960109102400_36209461@mail06.mail.aol.com>
>A webcrawler search on "carnivorous plants" turned up Sally & Co. Seeds
page,
>an online catalog which lists a "Chinese Fly-Catching Vine" Aristilochia
>plant with long, peculiar, insectivorous flowers." I'm just a novice in
this
>hobby, but in all of my reading, I've NEVER come across this cp, and I've
>seen stated repeatedly that pollination and fertilization are evolutionary
>separate functions in cps, i.e. you'd be more likely to find a 30'
man-eating
>Drosera than you would an insect-eating flower. Can somebody set me
straight
>on this?