Pitcher plant

Sarracenia purpurea. According to Walti,i this pitcher plant on distillation with alkali yields a basic product from which on neutralisation by acid only ammonium salts could be isolated, which is said to be sufficient to account for the pharmacological results recorded for a neutralised distillate of the plant by Bates and Judovich ( (1) J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1945, 67, 2271 (2) Ancesthesiology, 1942, 3, 663 Judovich, ibid., 1943, 4, 313). 

A number of plants can eat insects. These plants are called insectivorous plants. Examples include the Drosera, Dionaeva, Venus-flytrap, pitcher plants, sundew, and blad-derworts. Insectivorous plants are most often found in moist and nutrient-poor habitats. The insects, which the plants trap, provide mineral nutrients. The amazing speeds of electrical impulses are illustrated by the capture of insects by insect-eating plants and during the tropism. Action potentials in the plants not processing motor activity are similar in their characteristics to the action potentials of sensitive plants of the... 

Coniine Coniine or (5 )-2-propylpiperidine, molecular formula CgHnN, is a poisonous alkaloid found in the hemlock poison and the yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava). Coniine contributes to the foul smell of hemlock. It is a neurotoxin, causes respiratory paralysis and is toxic to all classes of livestock and humans. In 399 BC, Socrates was put to death hy this poison. 

Nepenthes raffsiana Masilus Zhu Long Cao (Pitcher plant) (root, stem) Flavonoids, anthraquinoids, amino acids, phenols.57 As a poultice to treat stomachache and dysentery. Internally to treat remittent fever. 

These insectivorous pitcher plants are found from the Seychelles and Madagascar to Australia and New Caledonia. They are often cultivated as novelties. 

Joel, D. M. (1988). Mimicry and mutualism in carnivorous pitcher plants (Sarraceniaceae, Nepenthaceae, Cephalotaceae, Bromcliaccac). Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 35,185-197. 

The pest insects that eat our treasured ornamentals and rob a share of the vegetable harvest are only a tiny fraction of the total insect population around us. The overwhelming majority of insects are harmless members of the natural community. Many are directly beneficial in their role as crop pollinators, predators on pests, and decomposers of plant material, d hey can be as common as houseflies, distributed globally, or as rare as the flea that lives on the skin of certain sea mammals or the midge that lives in the tiny pool of water in a pitcher plant. 

Pipiltzintzintli Poppy (black) Wormwood Others Pitcher Plant... 

Front cover image (clockwise from top right) (1) Rice paddy under cultivation, Wargal (near Hyderabad), Andhra Pradesh, India (Photo by K. Ramesh Reddy) (2) pitcher plants (Sarracenia flava) in wet prairie of Tate s Hell Swamp, Florida (Photo by Todd. Z. Osborne) (3) mangrove swamp. Lost Man s River, Everglades National Park, Florida (photo by Todd Z. Osborne) and (4) shore of Blue Cypress Lake, Blue Cypress Marsh, Florida (Photo by Todd Z. Osborne). 

The opposite of super-hydrophobicity, the Lotus Effect, is super-oleophobicity, the Pitcher Plant Effect. A natural example of super-oleophobicity involves the Nepenthes Pitcher Plant, which has microtextured surfaces in which an aqueous liquid fills the spaces within the texture and forms a continuous overlying film to cause insects to slip into the plant s digestive juices. Here, the plant s super-oleophobic surface essentially repels the oils on the insects feet. This is termed the Pitcher Plant Effect. Microporous, microfibre coatings have been developed to mimic this effect and be highly repellent to oils while remaining permeable to water. 

One of the most amazing characteristics of insects is their ability to cling to almost any surface, whether it is vertical or upside down. However, the walls of the Nepenthes pitcher plant are so slippery that any insect that lands on those walls slips to its death in the digestive juices at the bottom of the pitcher. One can envision this type of slippery surface being useful in human activities, such as in pipes for handling biomedical fluids and fuels. Slippery surfaces also could be useful... 

Joanna Aizenberg and her colleagues at Harvard University have designed a synthetic system that mimics the slippery pitcher plant surface. Their omnIphobIc (repels virtually all liquids) surface, which they call SLIPS, is prepared from a porous network of Teflon nanofibers that is infused with a special oil-and-water fluid. It is the layer of fluid on the su rface of the Teflon sponge that... 

Plummer, G. L., and J. B. Kethley. 1964. Foliar absorption of amino acids, peptides, and other nutrients by the pitcher plant, Sarracenia flava. Bot. Gaz. 125(4) 245-260. 

The carnivorous pitcher plant eat insects to utilize the nitrogen held in the insect tissue. 

Although [Mo]-II was the only effective chiral catalyst available in the early 2000s,molybdenum-based catalysts prepared from easy-to-handle precursors by in situ methods have led to a significantly efficient asymmetric catalyst. For example, [Mo]-III (5mol%) exerted the efficiency on the ARCM reaction of 151 (83% yield, 87% ee) in an enantioselective synthesis of coniine (153, Scheme 24.39), a poisonous alkaloid found in poison hemlock and the yellow pitcher plant. [Mo]-II can be considered as a first-choice catalyst for the ARCM reaction as a result of its commercial availability, and it has been used in recent synthesis of natural product. 

Coniine is a neurotoxin of which less than 200 mg is fatal to humans. It can be isolated from poison hemlock and from the yellow pitcher plant. In the body, it causes paralysis by blocking the nicotinic receptors on the post-synaptic membrane of the neuromuscular junction. It does not affect the central nervous system therefore, the poisoned remains conscious until paralysis results in cessation of respiration. The first total synthesis was published by Ladenburg in 1886, in which he evenmaUy separated racemic coniine by classic resolution with tartaric acid. Historically, it became famous being the poison used to kill Socrates. 

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