The enchanting Dionaea muscipula's splendor
No, I am not a photographer, but before I return to posting my spiritual articles on Monday I felt like taking some pictures of some of my carnivorous plants and telling a bit about them.
Dionaea muscipula (Venus flytrap)
The venus flytrap surely is the most well-known carnivorous species, yet unfortunately the lingering Human need and greed for land and the consequent exsiccation of marshland has been entailing drastic decimation of this species' distribution in their natural habitats, especially in North and South Carolina, USA.
This is one of my tiny biotops where I exclusively cultivate the Dionaea muscipula, and for some reason whenever I placed them onto the window sill I couldn't shed the feeling that they try to telepathically tell me that they fear falling out of the window, and therefore prefer safe ground devoid of obvious altitude levels. So I catered for their wish and gave them a more comfy place to be.
Among all carnivorous plants, the Venus flytrap's hunger for sunlight is the strongest, and without ample sunbaths the red colour play inside the trap won't unleash its full potential. Mine are still very young, but they are growing drastically, so very soon I might consider repotting them.
Each trap can only snap shut five times, while the digestive process can only repeat itself three times. Once these limits have been reached, the trap dies back. As you can see in the image, there are three bristles on each side of the trap, and only when at least two of these bristles are being touched the trap will snap. Sadly, many people in garden centres are not aware of these mechanisms and trigger the traps at leisure, which is to the plant's detriment.
As I said already, many insects and plants on my planet of birth next lifetime will be much bigger in size than here on Earth. Since it is particularly the insects which I very much need to acclimate myself to, I think my huge passion for carnivorous plants is self-explanatory.
Much Love and Light,
Alex
If you would like to know more about gardening and permaculture drop by my blog and let me know what you think and what you'd like to know more about! https://steemit.com/permaculture/@mobios/get-shut-in-the-cold
Thanks a lot, I will soon take a look at it! :)
lel telepathy :O This one looks like straight out of a comic book and full of energy, nice!
I got mine on wednesday. They are just babys. But its good to read that the mechanism is limeted, so I can tell people no to triger them (maybe I write a sign with "toxic" on it ^^). Do you think the domesticated ones can survive outside? I heard that they need winter resting?
What a synchronicity and how cool that you too got yourself some!
To your question, as far as I know, over autumn and winter this particular species adjusts itself to the weather, and the stem will grow much shorter than in summer while the traps will also become much smaller. Altogether they'll grow much slower over the cold seasons. Yet they still nedd a rather bright place to feel good, and the temperature should be at least 10°C, because in case of frost the leaves and traps die back. Yet the subterranean bulb remain intact throughout the winter so that new stems and traps grow again in spring. So during summer there shouldn't be any problem, over winter it would get way too cold I guess :)
During winter, some people also like to put their venus flytraps into crispers in the refrigerator at 4°C at max so that they can recover completely, but that would require cutting their leaves and putting their rhizomes into an airtight bag so that they ca be seeded again in spring 😋