Venus Flytrap growing

There is only one genus of Venus flytrap … Dionaea muscipula Soland. ex Ellis. However there are many different varieties of this one species.

Most cultivar species are distinguished by the colour of their traps, their trap shape and the size of their traps. Traps with strange shapes such as short or triangular shaped spines, deep red colours and abnormally large traps are often given their own names.

For detailed information on the taxonomy of carnivorous plants I recommend checking out Barry Rice’s carnivorous plants taxonomy page.

Photo courtesy of Thane.

The question is, are they called “Venus Fly Traps”, “Venus Flytraps”, “Venus fly traps” or “Venus flytraps”?

Well, all of them are acceptable! Here on flytrapgrowing.info we refer to them as Venus flytraps, but that’s purely for consistency across the site. Many other websites and books refer to them by the other variations of the name If you want to be 100% correct, then it’s best to refer to the plant by it’s full name of Dionaea muscipula Soland. ex Ellis.

More information about the formal latin name of the Venus flytrap is available on our Taxonomy page.

Photo courtesy of Jamie Duke.