A Carnivorous Christmas

[Begriffe: Familienfeier, Weihnachtsbaum, Geschenke]

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On Christmas day, Keith sat at his kitchen table, wrapping the presents he would be taking to his family's Christmas dinner that night. Unfortunately, he was having some difficulty focusing on task at hand.

Damn fruit flies, thought Keith, as he swatted at the tiny, flying object in front of his face, that's what I get for eating healthy.

The infestation had arrived with a box of bananas he had bought to make smoothies in an effort to get back in shape. He had put on some weight in his first year at his new job, and had wanted to shed these pounds before the holidays. Though the bananas and the weight were gone, the fruit flies remained. Keith had tried everything to get rid of the annoying bugs. He kept all the food in his kitchen wrapped in plastic bags and kept his counters meticulously clean. He made little traps with paper cones and cups as he had read to do on the internet. He even tried moving his pet lizard, Fluffy, into the kitchen in the hopes that she would eat the fruit flies. While he scored some victories here and there, the annoying little flying specks still greeted him every time he went into his kitchen.

He saw one fruit fly land on the table in front of him, and moving slowly, raised his hand to make the kill. However, as he was just about to smack the little menace, his cellphone began to ring. He stopped and answered it. It was his older sister, Kate.

"Hey! Merry Christmas! What's up?" asked Keith.

"Merry Christmas! I was just checking to make sure you're still coming by for Christmas dinner tonight!"

"Yep, I will be there! Need me to bring anything?"

"Yeah actually. What have you been feeding Fluffy these days?"

"Same as usual. She gets her little bowl of frozen crickets and mealworms every day. Why do you ask?"

"Is there any chance you can bring some of those frozen crickets over?"

"Uh," Keith hesitated, remembering that his sister, who worked as a botanist, had just returned from a long research trip in Southeast Asia. He worried she might have learned a recipe for cricket while away. He asked "what do you need frozen crickets for?"

"Oh you'll see!"

"You're not planning on cooking them up for Christmas Dinner, right?"

"Oh no," laughed Kate, "Don't worry. We're having a normal Christmas ham. No insects."

"OK. I'll bring your frozen crickets," said Keith, "how many do you need?"

"Not too many. The pet store should be open again after New Years, so maybe like 10?"

"OK, I'll bring you a bag of 10 frozen crickets."

"Awesome thanks! That's a huge help! I'll see you in a few hours then?"

"Yep!" said Keith.

"Perfect. See you soon!" said Kate, hanging up the phone, and leaving Keith to ponder why his sister wanted a bag of bunch of frozen crickets. He knew she didn't have a pet lizard.

That evening, Keith arrived at his sister's apartment, carrying the box which contained the wrapped gifts and a plastic bag of frozen crickets. Keith had been very deliberate in his gift shopping. His younger brother liked video games, so he bought him a new Xbox controller. His parents were planning a trip to Hawaii so he had bought them a guidebook for Hawaii and a pair of snorkels and goggles. His sister was the hardest to shop for. She basically took care of herself and he couldn't think of anything she needed or would even use. The best he could come up with was a gift card for the hardware store. He knew she had plants growing all around her apartment, and assumed she often bought new lights, pots and potting soil for all her plants.

Keith knocked on the door and his sister answered.

"Hey Keith! Merry Christmas! Good to see you!" she said, hugging him.

"Hey Kate, Merry Christmas! And yes, I brought you your frozen crickets."

"Ah perfect. Well everybody is in the living room, so come on in and make yourself comfortable."

Keith stepped into the apartment and followed his sister. As he walked past her collections of orchids, cacti and other plants, he smelled a faint but very noticeable odor of red wine in the air. He thought this was odd since his sister didn't drink alcohol. As they entered the living room, he saw his parents sitting on the couch and his younger brother Derek sitting in an armchair.

"Hey Keith! Glad you made it!" said his father.

"Merry Christmas!" said his mother.

"Merry Christmas bro!" said Derek.

"Merry Christmas everybody!" said Keith, who then turned to his sister, gestured at the box of gifts, and asked, "Where should I put these?"

"Oh just put them under the Christmas tree!"

Keith scanned the living room but didn't see a Christmas tree.

"Christmas tree?" asked Keith.

"Ah. Sorry, I should have said Christmas pitcher plant," said Kate, pointing to a corner of the living room that was occupied by a large pot with a wooden trellis. On this trellis climbed a rather peculiar looking vine that had been decorated with a couple of ornaments and strands of tinsel, and a golden star had been tied to the trellis at the top of the vine. A couple of wrapped gifts sat in the moss that filled the pot at the base of the vine. It was the strangest-looking Christmas tree Keith had ever seen.

"Christmas pitcher plant? I guess I should have expected nothing less from a botanist," said Keith as he walked towards the plant. As he got closer, he could see noticed that many of the leaves had stems protruding from the tips, and from many of these stems hung large cup-like structures that even had small leaves forming lids for the openings. He could see why this plant was called a pitcher plant. It had little pitchers hanging from its leaves.

As he transferred the presents from his box to the plant pot, he could smell the odor of red wine even more strongly than when he entered the apartment. He sniffed the air. The smell seemed to be strongest near the pitchers of the plant. He turned towards his sister.

"Hey sis! Is this plant what smells like red wine in here?"

"Yes! Good nose!"

"So it's a plant that has little wine pitchers growing on it? Why does it do that?"

"Well I was going to save this story for dinner, but since you asked, old-world pitcher plants, or, to use their scientific name, Nepenthes, are carnivorous plants that trap and eat insects using those pitchers. They often emit a sweet smell to lure the insects in, and then the insects, upon landing or climbing onto the slippery surface inside the pitchers, fall into the digestive juices at the bottom, and that is how these species of plants get their nutrients. However, there are many species of Nepenthes, most specializing in a particular altitude zone or soil type, and featuring pitchers optimized to capture the insects in these biomes. This particular pitcher plant we have here is actually a new species I found on the research trip to Papua New Guinea this past October, and it has a very unique odor of red wine, likely to lure in fruit-eating insects, although given the size some of the specimens in the wild reach, I suspect they may also catch bats. I brought this one specimen back with me from that trip, and it seems to be thriving in my apartment. I know you probably think I'm crazy for decorating a carnivorous plant, but I didn't feel like killing a tree for Christmas, and how often do you get to have a Christmas tree that is a totally new species to science?"

"Congratulation!" said Keith's father, "I never would have thought my daughter would discover a new species of plant, much less a carnivorous one!

"Wow!" said Keith's mother, "This is big news!"

"Yeah, who would have thought that someone from this family would discover a whole new species! Congratulations sis!" said Keith.

"Yeah, awesome work sis! Just one thing: if it's a carnivorous plant, don't you have to feed it?" asked Derek.

"Yes. Actually, Keith, that's why I asked you to bring those crickets. I ran out of crickets yesterday and the pet store was closed for Christmas."

Keith retrieved the little plastic bag of crickets from the box and held it up for everybody to see.

"Here's the Christmas dinner for the Christmas uhh I guess tree?" he said, before looking at the pitcher plant, "so how do I feed this thing its dinner?"

"Feed me, Seymour!" said Derek, as he and the parents laughed.

"It's funny you should mention that. In the paper I wrote describing the new species for the American Journal of Botany, I proposed the scientific name Nepenthes Seymourii in honor of Little Shop of Horrors. You guys having that movie on DVD when I was a kid was probably a major factor in me deciding to study botany, and I could not think of a more appropriate species to bear such a name," said Kate.

"So how do we feed your lovely new pet?" asked Keith.

"It only needs one or two crickets per day, so I'd say we should just leave one of those crickets out to thaw and I'll put the rest in the freezer. After it thaws I'll get the forceps and you can just drop the cricket in one of the pitchers and that's it. Here, I'll take the crickets," said Kate, taking the bag of crickets from Keith's hand, "By the way, I know we usually do presents after dinner, but if it's alright with you, I'd like to do presents before we eat. I just know Keith's present probably shouldn't actually be in a box."

"OK by me!"

"Yep!"

"Sounds good to me!"

In keeping with tradition, everyone took turns fetching presents from under the Christmas "tree" and read the notes on the present out to everybody. Derek, despite being 17, was the youngest and went first. He sorted through the presents until he found a box with his name on it. It happened to be the box Keith had put there with the Xbox controller in it.

"Dear Derek. Merry Christmas and happy gaming for the new year! Love, Keith," he read, opening the box to reveal the Xbox controller.

"Awesome!" he said with a big smile, "Exactly what I needed. Thank you dude!"

Keith was up next. He noticed a rather large box with his name on it, so he decided to grab that one first.

"Dear Keith. This will go great in your kitchen. Merry Christmas! Love, Kate," he read.

Removing the wrapping paper revealed only a plain cardboard box, so he decided to open that as well. Upon opening the top, he could see green leaves. There was a live plant in this box. He gingerly opened the bottom to reveal a plant pot, and slowly pulled the plant pot from the box. He could see it was a vine that looked just like a smaller version of the pitcher plant Kate had decorated for Christmas.

"Is this, uhh, one of those?" asked Keith, pointing at the big pitcher plant.

"Yes. And what I didn't tell you earlier is on our trip to Papua New Guinea, we observed that that this new species of pitcher plant often grows on or near banana trees, where it gorges itself on the fruit flies attracted by the banana fruits. I remember you complaining about the fruit flies in your kitchen, so when my specimen here produced seeds, I thought I would try to germinate one and give it to you. And as you can see, it worked. So you now have the first Nepenthes Seymourii to be born and raised in America. And if you look in the box I included some instructions to help you take good care of it."

"Aww wow!" said Keith, gently holding the plant up so everybody could see it, "I am honored that you deem my fruit fly problem worthy of the latest discoveries in the field of botany. Thank you, Kate."

"Well, if my research is correct, your home should be fruit fly free by New Year's," said Kate.

Sure enough, when Keith's family came by his apartment six days later to celebrate New Year's, there was not a fruit fly to be found.

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