Hide the chilluns and don’t let the womenfolk outa yer sight! Well, maybe that’s a bit alarmist — while North Carolina’s carnivorous plant, the Venus Flytrap, does eat insects, it hasn’t actually eaten any children or their mothers yet, but rumor has it that one did nibble on the nose of a curious kid who got too close. And some say one ate a very small Chihuahua once.
OK, maybe we made that up, but the Venus Flytrap is real, although there are not many of them around, which is why you could be fined from $100 to $500 for removing one from state-owned or private lands without permission. While the carnivorous plants, which are native to this area, grow in the wild only in a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, they can be obtained legally from various plant nurseries that cultivate them.
Aside from eating meat, what’s so unusual about this plant? Well, try to think of any plant you know of that moves very, very fast on its own without any outside help from the wind or animals. Got you there, didn’t we? Consider the fact that this plant moves faster than the eye can see.
To be exact, the Venus Flytrap’s leaves change from their open, concave shape to their closed, convex, clamshell-like state in 100 milliseconds. That’s 1/10 of a second –- faster than the eye can blink. Scientists only recently have discovered that the plant, with the Latin name of Dionaea muscipula, performs this amazing speed-closing act by means of the slow storage of elastic energy followed by its fast release.
If fast closing were all there were to the plant’s activity, it would be only semi-miraculous. However, this amazing plant manages to figure out what’s good for it to eat and what is not, which it sort of spits out. For example, if a twig or a leaf falls into the “trap,” the leaves will close part way, and then reopen after 12 hours allowing the leaf or twig to fall out or be blown out by the wind.
So how does the Venus Flytrap figure out what’s yummy and what is not? Actually, the plant does not think too much about it — mostly because it doesn’t have a brain to think with. The determination process is purely mechanical. Favorite treats to eat are spiders, flies, caterpillars, crickets and slugs.
On the inside surface of each pair of leaves are six stiff trigger hairs. If one of the trigger hairs is disturbed one time, nothing happens, but if two of the hairs are touched in close succession or one of the hairs is touched twice in rapid succession, the leaves instantly close — but not all the way. The two leaves close far enough that the spines on the edges of the leaves interlace, forming a cage-like trap that prevents anything inside from getting out. If whatever is trapped inside the leaves does not move, the Venus Flytrap reopens after 12 hours to let the object out.
But if whatever is inside continues to move about like a trapped bug or fly would, touching the trigger hairs, the plant realizes it’s got a live one and closes the leaves tightly together, forming an airtight seal. Once that happens, it’s all over for the bug –- he’s dinner for the next five to twelve days.
When the leaves close completely, the plant begins secreting acidic digestive juices, kind of like a human stomach does, to dissolve and absorb the soft tissue of the critter inside, leaving only the skeleton. Then the plant reopens, allowing the wind to blow the skeleton out. The number of times a pair of leaves can do this is very limited, however. When they’re too pooped to close anymore, the leaves stay open, absorbing energy from the sun so that new pairs of leaves can develop. Eventually they die and fall off.
You might wonder why the Venus Flytrap enjoys snacking on bugs and insects. Well, the plants thrive in the sunny, wet bogs of the coastal area, but the bogs are so low in nutrients that the plants have to supplement their diets with the occasional succulent bug. However, if you buy a Venus Flytrap of your own and intend to feed it, remember that the plant doesn’t like Big Macs or anything like that. Put hamburger inside the trap and it will die.
A bill was adopted in by the North Carolina legislature in 2005 that made the Venus Flytrap the Official Carnivorous Plant of The State of North Carolina. Not many other states have an official plant like that.
Curious about how the plant ended up with such an intriguing name? It’s easy to understand how “Flytrap” might relate to its insect-catching abilities, but why “Venus?” According to the International Carnivorous Plant Society, the origin of the name is somewhat lurid. First studied in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when women were often portrayed as temptresses greedy for power, botanists apparently found a parallel between capturing and digesting insects and certain aspects of female anatomy and behavior. Thus, the story goes that they named the plant after Venus, the pagan goddess of love and money.
There is some disagreement with regard to the correct spelling of the name. Carolina Beach State Park and the N.C. legislature use the term Venus Flytrap. Webster’s Dictionary calls it Venus’ Flytrap and Botanical Society documents use both.
If you'd like to see these plants up close and personal, take a trip to Carolina Beach State Park or the Green Swamp, a preserve managed by the Nature Conservancy that is home to a dozen other species of carnivorous plants, including the pitcher plant. The Green Swamp is located on NC-211, 5.8 miles north of its junction with US-17.
