The truth is that this is in fact a regular Iceland Poppy. This bizaare looking photo was taken by Harold Davis in his backyard.

Specimen A: low light, distilled water

The maximum trap size for specimen A, our distilled water fed plant, is now up to a whopping 35 mm, this is an 8 mm increase on the size when purchased. The strength of the leaf base of the traps seems to have improved, as they are now at approximately the same angle (30 deg. from vertical) that they were when new. There are now 17 traps, in comparison to the mere five present when the plant was purchased. So not only has the size of the traps increased, but their numbers have shot up too! This plant is coping very well in it’s dimly lit environment and the inside of it’s traps are looking a very nice red colour.

This plant has been manually fed one fly since the last report, it has not captured any prey on it’s own.

Specimen B: low light, tap water

Our low light tap water fed plant specimen B is also growing very strongly. The largest trap is now 37 mm across which is an 8 mm increase from the original 29 mm maximum at purchase which was still the largest sized trap after the six week mark. The traps are now back to the 30 deg. angle from vertical that it had when first purchased too (this indicates strong structure).

The plant now has a total of 17 traps in comparison to only 4 when purchased. The plant has captured two flies since the last report, one on it’s own and another was fed manually with tweezers.

So despite the constant feed of inferior tap water, this plant seems to be thriving! It’s traps are larger than Specimen A which was expected to grow stronger and faster than it’s tap water fed counterpart.

Specimen C: Control Plant, medium light, distilled water

Our control plant is the sickliest looking plant of our three test subjects. It is not looking healthy and has lost much of it’s red colouring from it’s traps. Another plant which is growing in exactly the same conditions is strong and healthy, but this particular specimen is suffering for some unknown reason.

As a control specimen this has been a failure. We will work to get this plant back on track, but it is slowly but steadily looking less healthy than the surrounding plants. The traps are drooping over the edge of the pot and after catching it’s last two flies, the traps died and turned black.

Advantages

• Ideal for situations in which your flytrap will be growing in a low humidity environment. Low humidity environments are harmful to Venus flytraps.
• Your flytrap will not need watered as often due to less loss of water from evaporation.
• Bugs can be placed inside the terrium where they can be caught ‘naturally’ rather than being placed directly into the trap.

Disadvantages

• Your plant will usually struggle to catch it’s own prey and need to be fed bugs.
• The terrarium can overheat if in strong sunlight.
• The enclosed environment can result in a lower concentration of carbon dioxide leading to reduced plant growth.

Make your own

You don’t need to purchase a terrarium, you can easily make one for free. All you need is a large soda pop/fizzy drink bottle! Cut the bottle in two and place it on top of your plant and voila, you have a mini terrarium

If your plant is already in a mildy humid environment, you may wish to leave a small air hole, this will not increase the humidity as greatly as with a fully covered terrarium but will improve air circulation.

Image of egg terrarium borrowed from bitsandpieces.com.

When Venus flytraps flower, they are often left in a poor state for a considerable time afterwards (often up to a year). They usually do not grow as quickly during this time and are likely to look sickly, limp and are more susceptible to dying.

To avoid this, most growers remove the flower stalks before the flowering process takes place. The flower stalks look different from regular trap growth as they are not as flat as the trap stalks. If you are unsure if your stalk is from a trap or a flower, then you can let it grow out a centimetre or so and if it doesn’t look like a trap by then you can safely chop it off. Don’t let it grow any further though as your plant may suffer for it.

If you don’t pay much attention to your plant or haven’t read this till you’ve discovered a 20+ cm long stalk with a small bud at the end growing out of the center of your Venus flytrap, then you may as well just let it flower as it’s too late. Enjoy the beauty of the flower in all it’s glory as chopping it off now is unlikely to help. Your plants energy was wasted growing that stalk.

Photos on this page are courtesy of Torgrim Johansen

The test plants are looking fairly healthy but have lost some of the red colouration from their leaves in comparison to our control plant which is in a sunnier area. The maximum trap width of all of the test plants has not changed measurably so far.

Specimen A: Low light, distilled water

Specimen A, which is being watered with distilled water and grown in a low light environment is looking okay, but it’s leaf-base is weakening, causing the trap with the longest leaf-base (bottom right in above photo) to droop towards the ground. The initial angle was approximately 30 deg. from vertical, however it is now closer to 30 deg. from horizontal. This plant has grown an extra trap and a further three stems are growing. Unfortunately, one of the new stems has begun to turn black. A fly was fed manually to this plant one week ago, the trap is yet to re-open.

Specimen B: Low light, tap water

Speciment B, which is being watered with tap water was manually fed a fly one week ago, it’s trap is beginning to re-open. One of it’s traps was triggered, but did not catch a fly, this trap re-opened within 48 h. This plant still has three traps, but another trap is in the process of opening and another stem will probably be forming a trap soon.

Specimen C: Control Plant, medium light, distilled water

Our control plant speciment C, is looking nice and healthy and has caught a fly naturally and been fed one by hand, both times the traps re-opened within five days.  The red colouration in the leaves is not as intense as they were at the beginning of the experiment, but not hugely so. The total numbers of traps is still six, however their leaf-bases are noticeably longer than when purchased.

Conclusion

This is early days yet, so there’s not much that can be concluded from the results so far. However initial results are showing are indicating that the control plant (specimen C) is coping with it’s new environment better than the two test plants in dim light (specimens A and B). Specimen B which has been watered with tap water appears to be slightly healthier than specimen A which has been watered with distilled water.

Information will be posted here eventually with information about the amount and composition of dissolved solids in the tap and distilled water used for this experiment and the approximate daily average light intensity that the plants are exposed to. So check back later or subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up to date with the experiments progress.

The video below is of the tap water plant being fed. This particular fly caused many problems for us, as it kept launching off before I could grab it with the tweezers. However some deft tweezer saved the day and the plant eventually got fed! For information about manual feeding of flies, please visit our ‘manual feeding‘ page.

 

[See post to watch video]

The article has many, many pieces of information which will be of tremendous help to growers of Venus flytraps. Here are a few selected quotations from the page:

… The Venus Flytrap is a large man eating monster. Each leaf reaches a maximum size of about three to seven meters, depending on the time of year … Flytraps that appear to have more than 10 leaves are generally colonies, formed by by aliens underneath the ground. …

The article then bleats on about all sorts of interesting things

… The mechanism by which the trap snaps shut involves some big ass muscles, steriod abuse and generally massive ass chompers…. are very popular as cultivated plants and are often used for catching burglers and other unwanted people on your property. They are difficult to grow as they often eat their owners …

And yet people still feel the urge to criticise Wikipedia

According to the encyclopedia article, the photo above is what will happen to you if you fall into your plant!

From Wikipedia: A cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because it has desirable characteristics (decorative or useful) that distinguish it from otherwise similar plants of the same species. When propagated it retains those characteristics.

Here is a complete list of all of the current Venus flytrap (Dionaea) cultivars registered with the ICPS.This list does not include those cultivars which are not fully registered with the ICPS such as Dionaea ‘Clumping Cultivar’, Dionaea ‘ Big Mouth ‘, Dionaea ‘Kinchyaku’, Dionaea ‘Red Rosetted’, Dionaea ‘Royal Red’ etc.

Dionaea ‘Akai Ryu’ - aka Dionaea ‘Red Dragon’

The most common red form of the Venus flytrap. Is known for it’s intense dark red colouration.

Dionea ‘B52′

Currently considered to the largest Venus flytrap cultivar. Optimal growing conditions are required for these plants to reach their full size. Poor growing conditions will result in a plant the same size as any other.

Dionaea Clayton’s Red Sunset

Red with long skinny petioles (particularly during winter) whereas other red cultivars have quite wide petioles. They often lose all of their leaves during dormancy.

Dionaea ‘Cupped Trap’

The traps are joined at one end, creating a cup shape. Despite their warped appearance the traps still function correctly.

Dionaea ‘Dentate Traps’

The spines of each trap are short and triangular like a sharks tooth instead of long and skinny as in ‘regular’ varieties. The spines of small/younger plants do not shows these properties as prominently.

Dionaea ‘Fused Tooth’

The spines of the traps are bent out of shape, fused together by webbing. The traps usually look normal during spring however.¹

Dionaea ‘Green Dragon’

This is believed to be a mutation of the ‘Red Dragon’ cultivar, but the edges of the traps do not turn red, even when exposed to intense sunlight.

Dionaea ‘Holland Red’

A red variety which is often green when growing in insufficient light.

Dionaea ‘Jaws’

The traps are very big and have short, pointy spines.

Dionaea ‘Justina Davis’

The traps are always green, even when exposed to intense sunlight.

Dionaea ‘Louchapates’

The spines of the traps are split and found at the ends of the trap lobes.

Dionaea ‘Petite Dragon’

Has the same deep red colour as Dionaea ‘Akai Ryu’ but is not as large and has bifurcated flower stalks.

Dionaea ‘Red Burgundy’

A red variety which is known for having rapid growth characteristics (for a red variety).

Dionaea ‘Red Piranha’

Has short, triangular spines like Dionaea ‘Dentate Traps’ but the intense dark red colouration of Dionaea ‘Red Dragon’.

Dionaea ‘Sawtooth’

Similar to Dionaea ‘Dentate Traps’ but with trap spines which are modified into short, sawtoothed edges.

Dionaea ‘Wacky Traps’

The leaves are incompletely developed. This is an extremely slow grower that also has strangely distorted flowers. Known in some circles as “Bart Simpson”, but this name has not been established and might even violate some trademark laws.

Cultivar Groups

From Wikipedia: Under the botanical nomenclature of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), a cultivar group is any gathering of cultivars designated by common traits.

Dionaea Dentate Traps Cultivar Group

This cultivar group contains all plants with short, triangular shaped spines.²

Photos of ‘Fused Tooth’ and ‘B52′ courtesy of Corrosive Halo. Photo of ‘Red Dragon’ courtesy of Cobalt Crow.

Specimen A: Distilled water

The total number of traps was five, three of which were elevated, two were sitting at soil level, plus two stems were forming new traps. The largest trap was 27 mm across. The maximum stem length was 80 mm.

Specimen B: Tap water

The total number of traps was four, two were elevated and two traps were at soil level. The largest trap was 29 mm across. The maximum stem length was 70 mm.

Specimen C: Control plant

The total number of traps was six, all were sitting at soil level, plus there were two new stems beginning to form traps. One of the traps had a black spot. The largest trap was 27 mm across. The maximum stem length was 28 mm.