Purple pitcher plants (Sarracenia purpurea) are also known as northern pitcher plants. They are named after their rosettes of bronzy, reddish green, pitcher-shaped leaves. These plants also have a large, solitary, purplish red flower on a leafless stalk that rises above their rosettes of leaves.

The leaves of these carnivorous plants secrete a substance that lures insects. An insect crawls inside one of the leaves, which is lined with curved hairs. These hairs make escape very difficult. The leaf, pitcherlike in form and function, contains water in its base to drown the insect when it becomes too weak to cling to the interior.

After the insect has drowned, enzymes and bacteria within the leaf begin to digest it. The plant readily absorbs the nutrients, especially the nitrogenous compounds.  

Round-leafed sundews (Drosera rotundifolia) are carnivorous plants. Their rosettes of small, sticky leaves covered with reddish glandular tentacles are very distinctive. They have white flowers in an elongated, one-sided cluster on a leafless stalk that rises above the rosette of leaves.

Sundews are capable of surviving in nutrient-poor soils where other plants cannot because they supplement their diet with insects. They trap insects in the sticky glandular tentacles on their leaves. Enzymes released by the tentacles slowly digest the trapped insects, supplying the plants with the nutrients they need.