MADBURY — Fanged, meat-eating creatures were the highlight of Halloween at Moharimet Elementary School on Friday.



Natch Greyes, of the New England Society of Carnivorous Plants, brought six different types of carnivorous plants to show to the school’s fourth grade class, including Venus flytraps, pitcher plants native to New Hampshire, as well as pitcher plants from South Africa and Australia.



“I know it’s Halloween. I didn’t bring any candy but I did bring some carnivorous plants for you,” he said to the students. “Some of them have fangs, like Dracula.”



One student asked whether the plants could eat anything bigger than flies and spiders since they have these fangs, to which Greyes responded that some bigger plants would eat mice.



“They will anything that happens to fall inside of them as long as they fit,” he said. “The plants have flowers, a sweet smell …. that can attract the bugs.”



Some of these plants, such as the pitcher plants, which resemble a deep goblet, entice flies in with the smell of its sweet nectar. Once inside, Greyes said, the flies cannot find their way out.

“They grow in all types of wetlands,” Greyes said of the plants. “They can be seen in bogs in Durham and Madbury, even at Lake Winnipesaukee.



New Hampshire’s carnivorous plants can grow a maximum of four feet tall, but that is not the case for all pitcher plants.



“If you were in the jungle you could see some up to 50 feet tall,” Greyes said, noting that these tropical plants typically grow long vines.



As students gathered around in awe, Greyes fed one of the Venus flytraps a freeze-dried worm. While one slowly began to close to eat the worm, the second one he fed was much quicker.



“Wow, it must be hungry,” one student, remarked. “It ate that fast!”



Greyes passed around several different types of the plants, and received mixed reactions from students.



”It’s actually really soft,” one student commented.



“It’s so sticky,” a student named Thomas said.



Greyes provided both of the classes with their own Venus flytraps that they could take back to their classrooms



“You actually don’t even need to feed them,” he said. “But it’s good for the kids!”

The students are no strangers to these types of plants, library media specialist Margaret Kelley said.



“The fourth-grade classes were learning about plants in the classroom,” she said. “So, we researched carnivorous plants. It’s connecting with what is taught in the classroom.”



This is this first time Kelley arranged to have an outside speaker to come in to give a class presentation.



“I got his name from the UNH greenhouse,” she said.



“He (Greyes) came all the way from Littleton to speak. Our children are very lucky.”



Kelley said that Moharimet is different from most other elementary schools, where the library is always open and students can come in whenever they have free time.



“It’s more of a flexible schedule here,” she said. “They learn all the stages of research.”



Moharimet Elementary School Principal Dennis Harrington said he understands first-hand how important it is for students to learn how to learn how to research different topics.



“It’s really great what she (Kelley) is doing here. I didn’t learn how to do research until my sophomore year of college,” he joked.

Harrington said that the presentation was a learning experience for him as well.



“When they said they were bringing in carnivorous plants, I thought they were coming from South America,” he said.



“I had no idea we had them in here!”



