From the rich collection I received from distant Belgium, I decided to focus on the pitcher plant. The pitcher plant belongs to the family of carnivorous plants and grows in tropical regions, mainly in the islands of Madagascar, Seychelles and Australia. The soil in these regions is low in minerals and available nitrogen, so over time the plant has evolved a special trapping mechanism in the shape of a pitcher. The plant emits a scent and has a color that mimics meat to lure the attention of the prey. It attracts, captures, preserves, kills and digests them. The pitcher is filled with a substance called nectar, which is a liquid sugar. When insects land on the edge of the slippery pitcher, they fall and drown at the bottom of the pitcher in the digestive juice of the plant. The more the insects try to escape from the liquid, the deeper they sink.

A key trapping feature is the ‘peristome’ (pitcher rim), characterized by sloping and microscopic ridges. The peristome is slick due to a layer of thickening material on the surface area and directs the prey straight into the trap. One biomimetic study I read shows that these ridges enable controlled and non-random transport of prey along the lubricated surface of the peristome and that the lack of interaction between a drop and a solid on these surfaces means that motion control is inherently challenging. The study suggests finding new mechanisms for harnessing directional mobility of drops which will help in designing synthetic surfaces that transfer drops in a controlled way, with an aim to improve the functionality of existing drop technologies.

Borosilicate lampworking technique,
Collaboration with LUCA School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium.
2021