Venus Flytrapadmin2019-12-02T21:11:09-08:00
With its menacing teeth and snapping jaws, it’s no surprise that the Venus flytrap has become the poster-child of carnivorous plants. This famous plant’s animalistic appearance almost makes it feel as though it is a thinking, calculating predator. In fact, it even exhibits some fascinating “behaviors” that make it seem like a living beast. For example, when something touches the inside of the plant’s jaws, it can tell whether the object is a bug or merely a piece of debris. Like other predators, the flytrap is selective about its prey; its teeth are designed to allow tiny insects to escape so that it can save its energy for a heartier bug that will satisfy its appetite.
Flytraps are relatively easy to grow even if you’re a beginner, so use our tips below to cultivate the best Venus flytraps you possibly can!
Sample of Venus Flytraps For Sale in the Marketplace
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Dionaea muscipula ‘Marthas Lips’
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$24.00
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Dionaea muscipula ‘Red Line’
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$22.00
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Dionaea muscipula SouthWest Giant x Shark Tooth
Sold By: Jeremiah’s Plants
$40.00
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Dionaea muscipula BCP Red Fused Petiole
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$40.00
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Dionaea muscipula WIP Slim Snapper – Small
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$30.00
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Dionaea muscipula WIP Long Snapper – Small
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$30.00
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Dionaea muscipula Werewolf x Werewolf
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$55.00
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Dionaea muscipula Uranus – Small
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$490.00
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Dionaea muscipula Trev’s Red Dentate
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$35.00
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Dionaea muscipula TDK2
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$35.00
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Dionaea muscipula Sunrise
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$55.00
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Dionaea muscipula Stiletto – Small
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$65.00
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Dionaea muscipula Star – Small
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$45.00
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Dionaea muscipula Small Sawtooth
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$30.00
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Dionaea muscipula SL seedling
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$35.00
Biologyof a Venus flytrap
The trap
The trap of a Venus flytrap is a highly-evolved leaf structure and one of the most fascinating mechanisms in the plant kingdom. It leverages a tripwire system, internal timer, and electrical impulses to force rapid movement. Traps are1/2 inch to 3inches long based on the flytrap variety. You’ll find themat the end of a leaf basecalled the petiole. Sometimes these petioles hug the ground – great at catching crawling insects, other times, they suspend traps in the air – great atcatching flying insects.
The trap is a complex mechanism and the lifecycle can be broken down into 4major steps:
1. Open trap
After a newly formed trap opens, it immediately begins luring insects using sweet nectar secreted within the trap and, in some varieties, bright red coloration. 6-8 small trigger hairs are dispersed withinthe “mouth,” which function as insect trip-wires.
2. Triggered trap
If one or moreof the hairs are touched twice within a 20 second time frame, an electrical impulse shoots along the outer cellular wall of the trap, rapidly expanding these cells, lengthening the lobes, and forcing the trap to snap shutin as fast as one-tenth of a second. With the teeth of the trap now intermeshed, the insect is imprisoned in a digestive cage.
3. Digesting trap
If the insect is small, it will escape between the intermeshedteeth and the flytrap won’t waste energy digesting a tiny insect that won’t provide ample nutrients. Similarly, if a stray leaf were to trigger the trap, the lack of continued movement would allow it to reset without wasting more energy (there are no vegetarian Venus flytraps). However, if the insect is too large to escape, it will continue to struggle inside of the closed trap, further stimulating the trigger hairs. The plant’sresponse is to sealthe trap, secret digestive enzymes via glands on the inner surface of the trap, and digest soft tissues of the insect over the course of four to ten days.
4. Reset trap
Once the insect soup is absorbed by the trap, it will reopen to reveal the dried, shriveled exoskeleton of the insect. This husk may attract additional scavenging insects which then become a second meal for the plant, and the cycle continues. A trap can catch one to three meals before it will turn black and die. This is normal, and the plant will use the energy gained from that trap’s meals to grow new ones.
Sub-soil biology and requirements
Perennials, flytraps die back during the winter months, enter dormancy,and rely onthe few thick, black roots branching from the rhizome to survive cold climate. They return from the rhizome during spring, starting the season’s growth witha rosette of ground-hugging leaves andsmaller traps.
Dionaeawill clump, splitting growth points and sending upoffshoots. You can separate individual plants as long as each one has a few roots to support the new plant. Use the water tray method to keep soil constantly moist (but not waterlogged) during growing months, and reduce watering during dormancy.
They take approximately four to five years to reach maturity, at which point they’ll be their maximum size, and send up flowering stalks in the spring.
Flowers
Flytrap flowers will shoot up on stem about one foot tallin early spring as the plant awakens from dormancy. Eachflowersimmediately releasing pollen from the anthersupon opening, and stays open for a few days. The stigma only becomes receptive after two or three days when it starts to look fuzzy. At this point, you can gently collect the yellow pollen using a toothpick and apply it to the stigma. If multiple flowers are open at the same time andstigmas are receptive, rubbing them together is an easy pollination trick. Pedals will close and wither after pollination occurs.
After six weeks, you’ll notice clusters of small, black shiny seeds that can be collected and refrigerated for future sowing, or sowed immediately. Check out more info, below, for tips on germinating your Venus flytrap seed.
History of the Venus flytrap
Arthur Dobbs, the governor of North Carolina first drew public attention to the Venus flytrap in 1763 by calling it the “Fly Trap Sensitive.” A few years later, samples were sent to England where they were studied, and became the first ever plant suspected to be carnivorous. The Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus was not convinced of the flytrap’s insectivorous nature and named it after the Greek goddess of love and beauty, Diana. While it is a beautiful plant, we think Thanatos, the Greek god of death, would have suited it better.
Where to findVenus flytraps in the wild
Venus flytraps arenative to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. Unfortunately, due to their fascinating nature, they have been illegally poached fromnative habitatswhere their conservation status is now“vulnerable.” As a conservation effort, Dionaea muscipula has been naturalized in the Florida panhandle, New Jersey and California. Do your part to preserve these wonderful plants in the wild by purchasing from reputable retailers who cultivate in greenhouses.
Cultivation, growing techniques & propagation
Soil
In nature, flytraps grow in nutrient-poor bogs. To mimic these conditionsat home, use one part peat moss to one part washed horticultural sand. Follow the links to purchase online, or both can be easily found at garden supply stores and The Home Depot. Avoid regular potting soil as it will burn the root system and kill the plant.
Containers
Four or five inch, drained plastic pots or glazed ceramics are ideal for a single mature plant. You’ll want to set these pots in water saucers to maintain soil moisture. Clusters of plants will do well in 6-to-8 inch pots and can grow into a gnarled sea of bug-eating traps!
Watering
Use distilled or reverse osmosis water. This can be inexpensively purchased in most grocery stores, or I recommend that you invest in a reverse osmosis (RO) filtration system that hooks up to asink (bonus – this also provides great drinking water for humans and pets).Keep the plant in a water tray and fill this tray to maintain damp-to-wet soil year round. Avoid overhead watering as you may accidentally trigger traps, and will compact the soil around the root system. Maintain a lower water table by using a shallow water tray (1.5″-3″)as flytraps don’t appreciate persistent waterlogged conditions.
Lighting
Flytraps enjoy full-to-part sun. Brighter conditions will promote red coloration in the traps, genotype-permitting. I’ve grow them with great success in direct, sunny Southern California light.
Feeding
Probably the best part about owning a Venus flytrap! They’ll frequently catch their own food if grown outdoors. For indoor plants, and as a great party trickfor friends, they’ll happily eat anybug that reasonably fits in a trap – from meal worms, to flies, and even spiders. If feeding live insects isn’tyour thing, you can use moistened, dried insects that can befound here or at pet food stores (lizard food). Do note that you will have to manually trigger the trap if feeding with deceased or immobile prey.
Fertilizers
Avoid fertilizing. Remember, these plants grow naturally in nutrient poorsoils – a major reason why they evolvedtraps to catch insects as their source ofnutrients. Fertilizing canburn flytraproots and easilykill the plant. Some advanced growersuse an extremely diluted fertilizer to foliar-feed plants (applying it only to the leaves of the plant), but this is risky for a beginner and not recommended.
Transplanting
Transplant in later winter, during but towards the end of dormancy. A transplanting into fresh soil every one or two years will promote healthy growth.
Divisions
Flytraps will frequently produce offshoots and develop into a clumping plant. This sea of flytraps looks great, but you’ll promote even morenew growth by dividing these clumps and repotting them in late winter towards the tail-end of their dormancy period. Do make sure that each crown of leaveshas its own root system before dividing.
Cuttings
Like a handful of carnivorous plants, Venus flytraps can be grown larger, faster from cuttings. Using this method, expect mature plants in two years:
Healthy leaves can be peeled off the main rhizome in late spring or early summer and used to grownew flytraps. Simply use a downward tug to remove a leaf that includes a smallish portion of the white rhizome. Lay this leaf flat on the usual soil mix, or on sphagnum moss and cover the white base with a small amount of soil. Maintain bright light, high humidity (using a humidity dome or plastic bag), and moist soil. A few weeks later, plantlets will sprout from the base and after a few months, you’ll have rooted, growing flytraps.
Seed
Seed can be sown within thesame season it is collected, or can be refrigerated in a small jewelersbag or envelope for future germination. To sow the seed, mix a flytrap’s preferred soil of sand and peat and pre-moisten with purified water. Sparsely spread the seed across this medium, and keep in a bright, humid place. It’s easiest to use a simple seed tray with a humidity dome. Germination will take a few weeks, and seedlings can be transplanted into a more permanent home after a year.
Tissue Culture
Flytraps take well to tissue culture propagation using leaf cuttings, seed, orflower buds.
Black spot fungus can appear on plants if they’re consistently humid and wet. Common fungicides like Physan will help, but avoid those that are copper-based as they can kill carnivorous plants.
Darn aphids… you’ll know they’re attacking your plants whennew leaves appear gnarled and malformed. Diazinon, Orthene, and Malathion are effective and flytrap-safe pesticides to rid your plants of the little devils.
In hot climates, you can also encounter spider mites – use Orthene.
It’s enough to make you think that we need carnivorous plants to protect our carnivorous plants.
Climate
They are warm-temperate plants enjoying warm-to-hot summers and cold winters. Mostly tolerant of light frost and brief freezes.
Outdoors
Flytraps will thrive in temperate, warm-temperate, and Mediterranean-like climates.
Greenhouses
They do well in cold houses, cool houses, and warm houses, and in cold frames in warm-temperate climates.
Terrariums
Can be seasonally grown in a greenhouse-style terrarium tank, but are best removed in winter during their dormancy period.
Windowsills
Will thrive in sunny windowsills. Added bonus – flytrapseat those pesky house flies that hover near windows when trapped indoors. Keep the plants cooler during winter dormancy.
Bog gardens
Great candidates for bog gardens, flytraps do well in temperate, warm-temperate, and Mediterranean-like climates. They’ll grow great alongside many sundews (Drosera) and North American pitcher plants (Sarracenia). Mulch in colder areas to prevent long freezes.
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