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Proboscidea parviflora is a species of plant commonly called a Devil's Claw.

It's interesting to me because it grows stalked stalked glands like a Sundew, it attracts and kills prey like a Sundew, but it doesn't produce the enzymes to digest its captured carcasses.

It is considered to be proto-carnivorous, on its way to carnivory but who knows?
Indiscriminate insect slaughter will certainly reduce damage from leaf-chomping creepy-crawlers.
And the plant may not benefit directly from its prey but the dead bugs might help fertilize the soil and help the growth of the next generation of seeds produced by the mother-plant.
Just my 2¢ worth.

I grow it because someone gave me free seeds for it a year or two ago.

Here are a few pictures.

You can see that the plant stem is completely covered with tentacles with a glistening dew-drop of death at the end of each one.
A closer look will reveal dead insects stuck fast to the tentacles on the stalk.

The second photo shows that the leaves have tentacles all the way around their perimeter and even on their upper surface.

The plant grows in normal dirt with any water it can get, not fussy at all.
It's basically a weed.

Sorry if I asked you already, but do you have the domesticate with white seeds or the wild form with black seeds?

You’re certainly right about them being weeds. I got a bunch of P. louisianica seeds from a plant that popped up at a nearby construction site. That thing grew into a monster a few feet across in only a couple months before it got mowed down.

bananaman wrote:Sorry if I asked you already, but do you have the domesticate with white seeds or the wild form with black seeds?

You’re certainly right about them being weeds. I got a bunch of P. louisianica seeds from a plant that popped up at a nearby construction site. That thing grew into a monster a few feet across in only a couple months before it got mowed down.

I have the White seeds from the domesticated variety.
I got them from another CP forum, and I think I got 2 seeds from someone on this forum.
I have a good memory, but it's short.

Thanks for letting me know. I just planted some seeds from mine, but they’re obviously the black, wild form that’s hard to germinate (P. louisianica has no domesticated form).