Venus Fly Trap ( Dionaea muscipula )

Our usual cake and coffee garden centre visit.  Today Dobbies at Orton Grange.  I have never known December be so devoid of plants showing colour and so full of coniferous Christmas trees.

So I was wandering looking at the indoor plants and I spotted a trolley full of Venus fly traps.  I don't think I have ever blipped one before.  We had one when I wa teaching but it didn't last long as they are easily tickled to death.  By this I mean the leaves are triggered by touch eventually, in some cases at the fist trigger.  They are triggered when the three trigger hairs, visible in the centre of the leaf on the left, are stimulated enough.  Generally it requires more than one hair to be touched or the same hair twice.  The leaf snaps partially closed very quickly, close enough to trap an insect, then if the stimulation continues i.i. there is a live insect panicking it fully closed pressing both sides of the elaf together, digestive juices are secreted dissolving its prey.  The reason carnivorous plants have evolved like this is because they grow in conditions short of nitrogen and this is a way to obtain it.