Carnivorous plants usually live in nitrogen poor soils that are typically wet mainly in peat or sphagnum bogs where the water table is at or just below the ground surface. They have adapted to surviving in these harsh conditions, where other plants would normally not be able to survive, by capturing and consuming insects. Locally in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, several species of plants have evolved and thrive in these wet, sometimes flooded areas.

The Pitcher Plant: Sarracenia purpurea
The inside of the Pitcher Plants tubular shaped leaf is lined with downward pointing hairs. These hairs block insects, which climb in side is search of food, from climbing up the tube and escaping. The fluid in the bottom of the tube contains digestive juices that will consume the insect and supply the plant with much needed nutrition.

Sundews: Drosera spp.
Their leaves are arranged in a rosette, generally flat on the ground, and their surface is covered with hundreds of hair like tentacles, at the end of which one is a red gland which produces a small, clear, glistening, sticky drop of dew. A flying-by insect which foolishly mistakes the dew for nectar and lands on a Sundew leaf, quickly discovers that the more it attempts to escape the more firmly it is held. Within minutes the Sundew begins to secrete enzymes and acids which start to dissolve its victim's body.  The glands then start to absorb the insect. There are three species of Sundew which are native to the Pines:

* Thread-leaved sundew: Drosera filiformis
* Spatulate-leaved sundew: Drosera intermedia
* Round-leaved sundew: Drosera rotundifolia

The Venus Fly Trap*: Dionaea muscipula
The Venus Fly Trap is the most famous of all carnivorous plants due to the active and efficient nature of its unique traps. The Venus Fly Trap produces a short fleshy leaf that carries a modified tip that forms two sides of the trap, each side contains three hairs which when touched two to three times causes the two sides to spring shut fast enough to catch flies and other insects. The leaf once closed then exudes a series of enzymes that slowly dissolve the insect and supply the plant with food.

*The Venus fly trap is not native to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.