Snapping traps, pitfall pitchers, sticky glue dew, mazes of oblivion -- deadly devouring devices of hungry plants eager to absorb the life nourishing juices of insects. Such lethality can be found daily at Chomp! 2: Return of the Carnivorous Plants. But there is a gentler side to these masters of deception. Like their vegetarian cousins, carnivorous plants reproduce sexually with often astoundingly beautiful flowers. To ensure reproduction, carnivorous plants shift their skills of trickery to employ insects for pollination. 
 
Sarracenia flava, the Yellow Trumpet Plant, is one such example. Before getting to the business of trapping prey with nectar, needles, and narcotic, the plant produces flowers. Sarracenia flava blooms in early spring before its pitchers are mature, so as to not capture the needed pollinators. It then lures bumble bees of the genus Bombus with fragrance, nectar, and pollen. The other-worldly flowers have evolved so that, after the bee has landed on the sepals, it must enter into the flower to access the pollen. The bee is forced to enter between the petals and in doing so can deposit on the stigma pollen it has picked up from another plant. The bee then must walk around the interior of the flower where it is dusted with pollen before it can exit to visit more flowers. Sarracenia flava and many other carnivores are flaunting fabulous flowers at the Conservatory right now. Come to Chomp! 2: Return of the Carnivorous Plants to see an exhibit to die for and learn why not every attraction need be fatal.