The Venus Flytrap, or the Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that eats bugs – the prime example of evolution. With so many misconceptions about this plant, a majority stemming form the movie Little Shop of Horrors, as a grower of the plant, I hope to change this.
The Venus Flytrap is a perennial plant whose only natural habitat is in a small section of North and South Carolina. Its ancestors lived in bogs with very low nutrition so it evolved to get nutrition out of the bugs that land in its traps.
The Venus Flytrap is currently threatened in the wild because of loss of habitat and poachers who try to sell them for high prices. Park rangers have caught people stealing thousands of these plants from their natural habitat and replant all of them to save the plants’ lives. This crime is a class two misdemeanor with a fine of $50 per plant. The North Carolina State Department of Agriculture is doing more to save the plants by feeding them a non-toxic dye glow, under a florescent light, hoping to catch the poachers, says Alex Felsinger a writer from Planet Save.
The plant, which is cultivated at hundreds of nurseries across the world, can be sold online for $10-$20. Although the plant is endangered in the wild, it is safe from extinction as a whole because of the millions of plants grown around the world, including over 20 in my backyard.
The Venus Flytrap is very easy to grow as long as any misconceptions are cleared up. First, the plant evolved in nutrient poor soil so it cannot be given fertilizer or grown in any fertilized soil. Good soil to use is a mixture of peat moss and perlite. Second, the plant must be watered with distilled water or rainwater. Third, it needs a lot of sunlight. Forth, it only eats live bugs; so don’t give it any hamburger meat. Finally, it is a perennial so it goes dormant in the winter. Find a place to protect it from the frost and bring it back out in the spring. These steps of care can also be applied to pitcher plants.
The Venus Flytrap is not the only carnivorous plant; there are many others that can also be grown. Plants such as pitcher plants and sundews both use different techniques to catch bugs. Quogue Wildlife Refuge has a small population of pitcher plants and sundews growing in the wild.
It is interesting to think that the Venus Flytrap evolved to survive in the bogs, but now will survive because so many people find it unique and interesting. Without the unique ability to eat bugs, the Venus Flytrap would be just another plant and no one would care of its threat of extinction.