Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey (mostly insects and arachnids). The trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves. The plant's common name refers to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, whereas the genus name refers to Dione. Dionaea is a monotypic genus closely related to the waterwheel plant and sundews.
The Venus Flytrap is a small herb, forming a rosette of four to seven leaves, which arise from a short subterranean stem that is actually a bulb-like rhizome. Each leaf reaches a maximum size of about three to ten centimeters, depending on the time of year; longer leaves with robust traps are usually formed after flowering. Flytraps that have more than 7 leaves are colonies formed by rosettes that have divided beneath the ground.
The leaf blade is divided into two regions: a flat, heart shaped photosynthetic capable petiole, and a pair of terminal lobes hinged at the midrib, forming the trap which is the true leaf. The upper surface of these lobes contains red anthocyanin pigments and its edges secrete mucilage. The lobes exhibit rapid plant movements, snapping shut when stimulated by prey. The trapping mechanism is tripped when prey items stumble against one of the three hair-like trichomes that are found on the upper surface of each of the lobes. The trapping mechanism is so specialized that it can distinguish between living prey and non-prey stimuli such as falling raindrops; two trigger hairs must be touched in succession or one hair touched twice,whereupon the lobes of the trap will snap shut in about 0.1 seconds.The edges of the lobes are fringed by stiff hair-like protrusions or cilia, which mesh together and prevent large prey items from escaping. (These protrusions, and the trigger hairs, are probably homologous with the tentacles found in this plant’s close relatives, the sundews.) The holes in the meshwork allow small prey to escape, presumably because the benefit that would be obtained from them would be less than the cost of digesting them. If the prey is too small and escapes, the trap will reopen within 12 hours. If the prey moves around in the trap, it tightens and digestion begins more quickly.
Speed of closing can vary depending on the amount of humidity, light, size of prey, and general growing conditions. The speed with which traps close can be used as an indicator of a plant's general health. Venus Flytraps are not as humidity dependent as are some other carnivorous plants, such as Nepenthes, Cephalotus, most Heliamphora, and some Drosera.
The Venus Flytrap exhibits variations in petiole shape and length and whether the leaf lies flat on the ground or extends up at an angle of about 40-60 degrees. The four major forms are: 'typica', the most common, with broad decumbent petioles; 'erecta', with leaves at a 45 degree angle; 'linearis', with narrow petioles and leaves at 45 degrees; and 'filiformis', with extremely narrow or linear petioles. Except for 'filiformis', all of these can be stages in leaf production of any plant depending on season (decumbent in summer versus short versus semi-erect in spring), length of photoperiod (long petioles in spring versus short in summer), and intensity of light (wide petioles in low light intensity versus narrow in brighter light).
Mechanism of trapping
The Venus Flytrap is one of a very small group of plants that are capable of rapid movement, such as Mimosa, the Telegraph plant, sundews and bladderworts.
The mechanism by which the trap snaps shut involves a complex interaction between elasticity, turgor and growth. In the open, untripped state, the lobes are convex (bent outwards), but in the closed state, the lobes are concave (forming a cavity). It is the rapid flipping of this bistable state that closes the trap, but the mechanism by which this occurs is still poorly understood. When the trigger hairs are stimulated, an action potential (mostly involving calcium ions — see calcium in biology) is generated, which propagates across the lobes and stimulates cells in the lobes and in the midrib between them. Exactly what this stimulation does is still debated: cells in the outer layers of the lobes and midrib may rapidly secrete protons into their cell walls, loosening them and allowing them to swell rapidly by osmosis and acid growth; alternatively, cells in the inner layers of the lobes and midrib may rapidly secrete other ions, allowing water to follow by osmosis, and the cells to collapse. Both, either or neither of these mechanisms may play a role.
If the prey is unable to escape, it will continue to stimulate the inner surface of the lobes, and this causes a further growth response that forces the edges of the lobes together, eventually sealing the trap hermetically and forming a 'stomach' in which digestion occurs. Digestion is catalysed by enzymes secreted by glands in the lobes. Digestion takes about ten days, after which the prey is reduced to a husk of chitin. The trap then reopens, and is ready for reuse, even though the trap rarely catches more than three insects in its lifetime.
Habitat
The Venus Flytrap is found in nitrogen-poor environments, such as bogs and wet savannahs, and survives in wet sandy and peaty soils. Although it has been successfully transplanted and grown in many locales around the world, it is found natively only in North and South Carolina in the United States, specifically within a 100 mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina.One such place is North Carolina's Green Swamp. There also appears to be a naturalized species of Venus Flytraps in northern Florida as well as populations in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. According to anecdotal evidence, a well-known horticulturist dropped thousands of seeds in Florida in hopes of spreading this plant. The nutritional poverty of the soil is the reason that the plant relies on such elaborate traps: insect prey provide the nitrogen for protein formation that the soil cannot. The Venus Flytrap is not a tropical plant and can tolerate mild winters. In fact, Venus Flytraps that do not go through a period of winter dormancy will weaken and die after a period of time.
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