VENUS FLYTRAP

This carnivorous plant, a favourite with children, is a native of North and South Carolina where it grows in a relatively confined area of coastal plain. The plant is now regarded as rare.

As the Venus flytrap’s natural environment of wet, acidic ground does not supply it with sufficient soil nutrients, the plant has adapted to augment its diet with live prey.

To catch prey, the flytrap has special leaves which are covered in short, sensitive trigger hairs. When insects land on these hairs with sufficient force to bend them, the leaves close over the prey in less than a second.

The Venus flytrap, however, also requires insects to pollinate it. Its blooms grow out of reach of its lower leaf-traps.

Flytraps bloom in spring, grow through summer and autumn and usually enter dormancy in winter. Some of the problems in the table opposite relate to their active growing period, so they aren’t as much of a concern in winter.