Sarracenia flava By Stephencdickson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60599735
Homer wrote about nepenthe, a drug to make people feel better and forget their woes. Kind of like alcohol. People noticed that insects acted drunk after drinking nectar from a carnivorous plant, so they named it Nepenthe. There is another carnivorous plant, Sarracenia flava, that has the same substance that affects insects: coniine. However, although the insects act drunk, they are actually getting paralyzed. So maybe they are not forgetting their woes at all. Maybe they are deep into misery over their woes. Unless there is something about coniine humans don't understand. So even though we may want to think of Nepenthe or Sarracenia as intoxicating plants, they are probably just toxic.
Why do carnivorous plants want to catch insects anyway? It turns out they live in bogs or other wet habitats where all the nitrogen is washed away. All animals have significant stores of nitrogen, so they found away to attract and trap insects, some of the smallest and most available animals. Some have a sticky surface to trap insects. The Venus Fly Trap actually closes a leaf around them. Sarracenia and Nepenthe have ways to force insects into pool of water and digestive juices in their traps so that they drown. Plant are so clever!
