Feature Plants

Meet the speedsters of the plant world

Ingenious botanical mechanisms let plants fling, snap and burst

venus flytrap

WITH A SNAP The leaves of the Venus flytrap capture prey through a process called snap-buckling. The outer leaf surface expands until it’s too much for the inner surface of the leaf to bear.

ATILA/SHUTTERSTOCK

By Dan Garisto

Somewhere in the wetlands of South Carolina, a buzzing fly alights on a rosy-pink surface. As the fly explores the strange scenery, it unknowingly brushes a small hair sticking up like a slender sword.