Kids: Inside the Venus flytrap
This drawing of a Venus flytrap is from William Curtis (1746-1799), was a trained pharmacist living in London, whose greater interest was the study of flora and insects. He maintained a large garden where he grew beautiful exotic plants. He began publishing the Curtis Botanical Magazine in 1787.
The Venus flytrap is only a few centimeters tall, but it’s technique for capturing insects would be straight out of a horror movie if the plant were as big as a human.
When a fly lands inside a gaping, jaw-like leaf, it touches trigger hairs. The cells along the leaf’s hinge swell rapidly with water, and force the leaf to snap shut. These hairs must be bent or disturbed twice in a short period of time for the plant to close.
Once the outer leaves have closed, the Venus flytrap must be continuously stimulated by its struggling prey, or it will abort the digestive process. If there is indeed live prey in the plant, the trap seals around the insect and secretes its digestive juices. The Venus flytrap digests the fly and ingests nitrogen that’s lacking in poor soils.
These plants thrive in sandy, acidic soils that are wet most of the year — in long-leaf pine forests. Frequent fires in these forests act like a dose of fertilizer for these meat-eating plants. But Venus flytraps have always had a small geographic range. They live only in the coastal plains of North and South Carolina. Today, less than 10 percent of their habitat remains.
The key to survival for Venus flytraps in the wild lies in preserving our last stands of long-leaf pine forests — and in protecting wetlands and having conrolled fires. Finally, experts say it’s important not to buy any Venus flytrap plant unless you can be sure it didn’t come from the wild.
