The Minecraft sniffer has sniffed a second ancient plant, the Pitcher Plant! As a predatory plant in the real world, how does it behave in the Minecraft world?
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On February 14, 2023, Valentine's Day, the "Minecraft" internal whistleblower "Badger" sent out a photo, suggesting that Minecraft will soon usher in a new plant, but we don't know the species of this plant, and what exactly is the source?
At that time, a player asked: "Mr. Badger, what happened to these flowers?" What does it represent? Obviously, we didn't get any reply, but at that time we speculated based on the characteristics of the version that this plant would most likely be a plant that the sniffer beast could sniff and excavate. Interestingly, this image has now been removed due to issues related to the leakage of new content in Minecraft.
On the fourth snapshot day in March 2023, Minecraft 1.20 welcomed the first snapshot 23w12a, while the sniffer also unearthed the second seed that can be sniffed - Pitcher Plant.
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Bottle grass vs pitcher plants?
Is the new Pitcher Plant in Minecraft bottlegrass or pitcher plants? Because in the usual sense, various literal translations will translate Pitcher Plant as "pitcher plant".
(1) First of all, the term "Pitcher Plant" usually refers to all bottle-shaped leaf plants with insect catcher functions, mainly adapted to grow in poor soil, nitrogen and phosphorus and other nutrient deficient environments. They use their unique morphology and structure to attract and capture insects and small invertebrates to replenish the nutrients needed by the body, and are a very special plant. These include " pitcher plant " , bottle grass , drosera , and other related plants , so " pitcher plant " can refer to both pitcher plant and bottle grass.
(2) Some differences between pitcher plant and bottle grass, the first is the same, both pitcher plant and bottle grass are bottle-shaped leaf plants with insect catcher functions.
A. Different families: Nepenthes belongs to the Nepenthes family, and bottle grass belongs to the Ceratogenaceae.
B. Different appearance characteristics: generally speaking, pitcher plants are generally larger, and bottle plants are relatively small. The bottle of " Nepenthes " hangs from the bottle , and the bottle of " Nepenthes " grows directly upwards from the grass itself. In morphology , " Nepenthes " usually has elongated leaves and distinctive pitted traps , while " bottle " has a bottle-like morphology , with its trap usually located inside the bottle.
C. Different insect catching methods: the insect trap cup of Nepenthes is concentrated at the top of the leaves, usually with a covered lid, and the pattern in the cup is complex and beautiful; The insect trap cups of bottle grass are evenly distributed, tubular in shape, and do not have a lid.
D. Different growth environment: Nepenthes grows in tropical rainforests and other high temperature and humid environments; Bottlegrass, on the other hand, grows in cold or temperate regions and prefers drier environments.
(3) The official explanation of "Pitcher Plant", some players mentioned that it is not clear what kind of pitcher plant is imitating the plant of Pitcher Plant. JAPPA REPLY, IMAGINE ONE! So the English wiki explains "Pitcher Plant" like this: Although it uses a generic name, the plant is actually a fictitious variety.
To sum up, the bottle trap of Nepenthes is independent, and the bottle grass itself is the appearance of a bottle trap. Meanwhile, Minecraft's bottle grass may be a fictional species different from the real world.
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Possible future features of Minecraft "Bottle Grass"?
With the 1.20 update focused on "creativity and self-expression," as well as a setting that included sniffers and ancient plants, it seemed like a great opportunity to pass up. So we still look at the new plant "bottle grass" based on the logic that Mojang will not make the prehistoric plants of sniffers worthless.
Feature 1: Prey on insects; We mentioned above that whether it is bottle grass or pitcher plants, the bottles on their bodies have the role of preying on insects. The leaves of bottle grass are an insect trap that secretes honey and digestive juices on its own. When insects are attracted to honey, they will slip into the digestive juice in the bottle because they are wet and slippery and cannot stand on their feet, and are digested and absorbed.
Feature 2: Collect water; Bottle grass can hold water, so you can fill a bucket or bottle from it like a cauldron. It can collect rainwater naturally, and the amount of rainwater collected in a single collection is only as much as a bottle.
Finally, if bottlegrass has the property of preying on insects, is it possible that Minecraft needs to implement an insect to solve this problem? For example, "fireflies"? Anyway, look forward to it...