Notice the stem that comes out purple and turns green at the base of the plant. That stem is the subject of this post.
Venus flytraps are known for putting up flowers that extend really far away, and usually straight up. But for some reason all my Venus fly traps have their flowers off in neighboring plants! Here are two photos from the same position with only the focus just changed.
Can see that the flower stem travels past two neighboring plants and it comes from the plant in the sky-blue pot. It is currently stuck in a neighboring sundew.
This is the first time in a long time that I can remember, where I was able to take a q-tip and pollinate the flowers from one plant to another, which should result in viable seeds.
here is the far end of that stem
So I went out to pollinate the flowers, and when I lifted one off of the sticky leaves of a sundew, it didn't want to go straight up anymore. Something has caught it!
So, let's follow another flower stem on the way to its base. This one is from my largest Venus fly trap plant.
Following it down to that bright green pot in the distance.
I didn't quite see it yet. Let me get past this sticky Drosera (sundew).
Can you see it? Look at this plant caught for itself. I think it caught, itself!
I know what happened. The stem fell into the trap and the wind blew and made it move around... The rest is history.
On our way down to the green pot where this flower came from, let's take a look at a good catch! I noticed that he did catch a nice juicy bug with one of his traps. You can tell by the puffiness of the closed trap.
Let's get another angle on the self cannibalistic catch.
But, like a poker player who wants to double down on a good hand, this guy caught a bug and then felt something wiggling in its other trap. All in!
When I first began to grow these wonderful plants, I would feed them bugs in order to make sure they're healthy. But they are perfectly capable of catching prey and it's best if the bugs go in alive because that stimulates the plant to make more digestive juices after sealing the trap shut.
Another thing I used to do when I was new to these plants is trigger the trap to show people how it closes, and what it looks like. They don't have jaw muscles and you can even put your finger in there and it does not hurt. It feels like eyelashes.
What happens, after you trigger a trap to close, is that it realizes nothing is inside the trap, nothing that is alive I mean, so it simply opens back up over the course of a day and a half or so.
As you can see, it bit its own stem and the trap never sealed shut, so it will open up and if the stem stays there it might close again. I have to watch for this and move that stem far away from the trap. Continual false catches robs energy from the plant with no nutritional benefit. They can die from that if it happens too often.
That is my story for today. I noticed it when I went out to get a large sundew that desperately needed to be repotted. That post is coming next!
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