Some plants (such as orchids, and water lilies) temporarily trap insect pollinators to ensure pollen transfer, then releasing them to finish the job. Some plants trap and kill insects with their sticky leaves (but do not digest the prey). All plants absorb nutrients either through their roots or leaves. However, even though these plants do some of the things that carnivorous plants do, they do not fulfil all of the criteria necessary to qualify as a carnivorous plant. Only plants that attract, capture, kill, digest, and absorb prey such as the pitcher plant, the venus fly trap and Audrey II are truly carnivorous.

In recent years people have been realising that nature is not quite so clear-cut as we would like. Some plants are not quite carnivorous, but are not quite non-carnivorous, either! For example, there are sticky plants that harbour insects on them. These insects crawl freely on the plant and eat the small creatures trapped by the sticky leaves. The predators excrete on the leaves, and the plant absorbs nutrients from it. Other plants rely on bacterial decomposition to break down the captured prey. Are these intermediate cases carnivorous? Or should they be called semi-carnivorous or sub-carnivorous? Scientists and philosophers are still pondering these questions.

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