I've been wanting to share this post for a while because it's been a really exciting few weeks watching my and my niece's new plants do their thing.
These are our carnivorous babies that I put off buying for more than a month because they are rather costly, but considering how my niece's face lit up when she saw them and I explained what they are – it was totally worth the wait!
MEET AUDREY
This is my niece's Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea muscipula). She's named it something entirely unpronounceable so I've just nicknamed it Audrey for now. Within the last three weeks Audrey has been munching on flies as can be seen in the photos. These plants are pretty phenomenal in their mechanics. They have tiny tooth like hairs on the inside of their traps that detect movement of a bug. If one hair gets triggered, nothing happens but if two hairs are touched within a short space of time, it triggers the trap to snap shut on the fly. Each of these three main traps in the photo had a mealtime recently.
The incredible part about these plants is that they adapted and evolved this way due to their living circumstances. Talk about dealing with the cards you're dealt! They grow in tropical places where the soil is very nutrient deficient so they had to hatch a plan and eating insects was their solution. If you look closely at the next image, you should be able to see the hair like thorns inside the trap.
When we were choosing our plants, I told my niece to look carefully at each pot and to choose a strong looking, robust plant but to also check if there were other plants in the pot. Sometimes you can get lucky like we did – the one she chose also had a baby Sundew (Drosera sp) in it. I don't yet know what species this is, but the man we bought them from breeds hybrids so it could be anything really.
Sundews are also carnivorous but they use slightly different tactics to lure and capture their prey. This plant below is 2cm in diameter. I had to use my macro setting on my phone to capture this. I think it came out pretty nicely.
As you can see, the leaves have a spoon-like shape with little extrusions or tendrils covered in sticky sap. I'm not sure if this sap has a taste or smell to lure insects closer, but once they come along to investigate, they get stuck in the sap and then the leaf curls up around them. The plant then sucks up the nutrients it needs. NOM NOM NOM!
Isn't it freaking gorgeous? Fascinating plants.
These two species of plants (and many other carnivorous plant species) tend to live in good harmony as neighbours as long as they aren't competing for light and food. I've seen some photos of really amazing looking terrariums with carnies in them. Maybe these will all end up in one big tank, wouldn't that be sexy AF?
Now that Audrey has had a few meals, she's starting to put out some new leaves which start off as little nubs that don't have any "eyelashes" and they later develop into the traps. Once the trap's lifespan has been reached, it tends to die off – you can see this in the pic where the brown withered trap is. These can then just be cut back, making room for the next set of leaves to come up.
You probably noticed that in the collage there are a few other funny looking plants and you'd be right. Those are my babies that I bought. They are a type of Pitcher Plant and I'll be sharing some more pics and info on them in my next post.
What do you think of carnivorous plants? Have you had any before? Feel free to tell me in the comments
All images and text are my own originals unless otherwise stated