Yes. Some plants eat insects such as nepenthes mirabilis*. The reason they do this is because they grow in areas where the soil isn’t good — it doesn’t have much food for the plants in it. The plants eat insects in order to get more nutrients*.

　　In the jungles of Indonesia lives a plant called the krubi. Believe it or not, this plant sprouts*, grows to 10 feet (3 m) or so (that’s taller than the ceiling in most houses), then dies — all within a few days! This plant is also interesting because it looks like a big tulip* with a long “spike”* growing out of the middle. This spike is the flower and the tulip petal* part is actually the leaves. Strange, huh?

　　Cactuses* are one of the slowest growing plants. Some cactuses only grow one inch (2.5 cm) a year. And one cactus, the saguaro*, only grows one inch during its first TEN years! But trees that live way up north grow even less. One spruce* tree in the arctic grows just over one-10th of an inch a year, or 11 inches in 98 years!

　　Yes, the flower of the corpse plant smells like a dead body (that is where the plant gets its name). If you smell a really dirty diaper, you can get some idea of what the flower smells like.

　　The biggest flower in the world is found in Asia. It is called the Rafflesia* and it is over three feet across (roughly one meter).

　　Actually, rhubarb is interesting. Part of the stem* is very poisonous and part isn’t. It is the green, leafy part that you can’t eat. During World War Two, some people were so hungry they tried to eat the leaf. This wasn’t a good idea and some people died as a result. The part you can eat is the red part of the stem. Many people like the taste of the rhubarb stem but others think it bitter. Some cooks even have about 500 different recipes* for rhubarb, everything from pies and cakes to meat glazes* and salad dressings*.(SD-Agencies)(Difficulty: senior)