Most Beautiful Rapidly Moving Plants

Squirting Cucumber

Ecballium elaterium, also called the squirting cucumber or exploding cucumber, is a plant in the cucumber family. It gets its unusual name from the fact that, when ripe, it squirts a stream of mucilaginous liquid containing its seeds, which can be seen with the naked eye. It can move rapidly thus a rapid plant movement. It is native to Europe, northern Africa, and temperate areas of Asia. It is grown as an ornamental plant elsewhere, and in some places it has naturalized. It is suspected to provide food for the caterpillars. This plant, and especially its fruit, is poisonous. In the ancient world it saw use as an abortifacient. In Turkey, the fresh fruit juice of this plant is directly applied into the nostrils for the treatment of sinusitis as a herbal / folk remedy.

Impatiens

Impatiens containing over a thousand species is a vibrant World of Busy Lizzies, Balsams, and touch-me-nots. Some species are annual plants and produce flowers from early summer until the first frost, while perennial species, found in milder climates, can flower all year. Regardless of their lifespan, the largest impatiens grow up to about 2 meters tall, but most are less than half as tall. The leaves are entire and shiny; their upperside has a thick, water-repellent cuticula that gives them a greasy feel. These plants derives their scientific name Impatiens and the common name “touch-me-not” in reference to their seed capsules. When the capsules mature, they “explode” when touched, sending seeds several meters away. This mechanism is also known as “explosive dehiscence”; thus having a rapid plant movement.

Orchidaceous

Orchidaceae, commonly referred to as the Orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family containing a number of beautiful dazzling flowering plants that possess rapid movement due to their strong highly specialized pollination behavior associated  to them. Orchids generally have simple leaves with parallel veins but are well known for the many structural variations in their flowers. In orchids that produce pollinia, pollination happens as some variant of the following. When the pollinator enters into the flower, there are a series of contractions and relaxations as that of a muscle occurs with the flower seen by naked eye and similar activity occurs when the pollinator enters another flower thus pollinating it. The possessors of orchids may be able to reproduce the process with a pencil, small paintbrush, or other similar device.

Witch Hazel

Witch-hazel (Hamamelis) are deciduous shrubs or (rarely) small trees growing to 3–8 m tall, rarely to 12 m tall. They are popular ornamental plants, grown for their clusters of rich yellow to orange-red flowers which begin to expand in the autumn as or slightly before the leaves fall, and continue throughout the winter.  The horticultural name means “together with fruit”; its fruit, flowers, and next year’s leaf buds all appear on the branch simultaneously, a rarity among trees.H. virginiana flowers in the fall of the year. The flowers of the other species are produced on the leafless stems in winter, thus one alternative name for the plant, “Winterbloom”.Each flower has four slender strap-shaped petals 1–2 cm long, pale to dark yellow, orange, or red. The fruit is a two-part capsule 1 cm long, containing a single 5 mm glossy black seed in each of the two parts; the capsule splits explosively at maturity in the autumn about 8 months after flowering, ejecting the seeds with sufficient force to fly for distances of up to 10 m, thus another alternative name “Snapping Hazel

Trigger plant

Stylidium (also known as triggerplants is a genus of plants that derive its name from Stylos, which refers to the distinctive reproductive structure that its flowers possess like a column or a pillar. Pollination is achieved through the use of the sensitive “trigger”, which comprises the male and female reproductive organs fused into a floral column that snaps forward quickly in response to touch, harmlessly covering the insect in pollen. They have beautiful flowers, and although species of the genus represent a very diverse selection of plants but  most easily identified by their unique floral column, in which the stamen and style are fused. The column also commonly called a “trigger” in this genus typically resides beneath the plane of the flower.

Sensitive Partridge Pea

Chamaecrista nictitans (Sensitive Partridge Pea, Small Partridge Pea or Wild Sensitive Plant) is a herbaceous species of legume widely distributed through the temperate and tropical Americas. It is an annual plant capable of rapid plant movement—its leaflets fold together when touched.