Venus Flytrap

I believe that the Venus Flytrap only grows in North Carolina. I took this shot in a wooded area behind a local elementary school. In a future blip I will show you the Pitcher Plant.

The Venus flytrap is a small carnivorous plant from North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. The flytrap has hinged, jaw-like leaves that capture and "eat" insects.
The Venus flytrap can live in very poor soils since it supplements its diet with minerals obtained from insects.

Each trap on a Venus flytrap plant has sensitive hairs that signal the plant when it is touched and cause it to close quickly. The sweet-scented leaves attract insects. When an insect alights on a trap and triggers hairs, it causes the jaw-like leaves to snap shut. It takes about 1/30 of a second for the leaves to snap shut (in full sunlight). Cloudy conditions or low temperatures slow the reaction time.

The trapped insect is then slowly dissolved by acids and digested by the plant. About a week later, all that is left of the insect is its hard chitin exoskeleton.

A pair of flytrap leaves dies after catching insects four times. If a trap is triggered but there is no insect inside, the leaves will re-open in about a day.


Closer View