[5] Brocchinia has undergone a spectacular adaptive radiation in mechanisms of nutrient capture, apparently in response to the unusually infertile, heavily leached substrates of the Guayana Shield.

[10] Another species, Brocchinia acuminata, is ant-fed myrmecophyte, apparently depending in part on nutrients and dead nestmates dropping into the tank from ants that live among the swollen, achlorophyllous leaf bases.

The facultative epiphyte B. tatei – together with the tree-like B. micrantha (up to 26 feet (8 meters) in height)[11] with its massive, gutter-like leaf axils that hold liters of rainwater – captures a great deal of falling vegetable debris.

Tanks and absorptive trichomes were later lost secondarily in Brocchinia steyermarkii, a terrestrial species common in wet sandy areas in the Gran Sabana.

Brocchinia serrata, a highly aberrant taxon with tough, serrate leaves that is found only on a few mesetas in Colombia, has now been shown to be completely unrelated and has been described as the sole member of a new genus Sequencia, with its name reflecting its initial recognition based on DNA sequence data.