AquaZia VENUS FLYTRAP (Dionaea muscipula)

The Venus fly trap (Dionaea muscipula) is surely one of the world’s most unusual-looking plants. People grow it not because of what it looks like but because of what it does: It eats flies.1 This fact makes it one of the most fun plants to grow, especially for children, who may watch it for hours as it “dines.”

The plant, which grows from a bulblike rootstock, bears a group of small white flowers at the tip of an erect stem 20–30 cm (8–12 inches) tall. The leaves are 8–15 cm (3–6 inches) long and have blades that are hinged along the midline so that the two nearly circular lobes, with spiny teeth along their margins, can fold together and enclose an insect alighting on them. This action is triggered by pressure on six sensitive hairs, three on each lobe. In normal daytime temperatures the lobes, when stimulated by prey, snap shut in about half a second. Glands on the leaf surface then secrete a red sap that digests the insect’s body and gives the entire leaf a red flowerlike appearance. About 10 days are required for digestion, after which the leaf reopens. The trap dies after capturing three or four insects.