Venus Fly Trap

Venus Fly Trap

Take a look at this little beauty.
Jane bought this plant at the weekend, it really is quite fascinating to watch.

How it works

A normal plant will grow the stems up to 5 inches (about 13 cm).
The trap will consist of two pads which are hinged together on one side only.
Along the other edges of the trap are 1/4 inch long spines which stand outward, similar to eyelashes.

The trap mechanism is triggered by three hairs which are inside the pads.
If you look very carefully at a pad (it's best to look along the hinge), you will see three tiny hairs sticking out from the middle of the pad. Each and every pad has these hair triggers.

When an insect crawls into the trap, it must touch either two different hairs, or one hair at least twice.
Once this happends, the pads close together very fast.
As a precaution against false triggering by inanemate objects or rain etc, the trap will reopen if these hairs are not triggered again. If the captured insect continues to struggle, however, the hairs are continually touched and this forces the trap to close even tighter, until a complete seal is made along the unhinged edge. You can see that the spines have now done their job of keeping the insect from escaping, and have turned outward.

It is at this stage that the digestive enzymes are released onto the insect which is slowly eaten away, the nutrients being re-absorbed through the pads themselves.
About 4-5 days later, the trap will re-open, revealing the dried up remains of the insect which would normally be blown away by the wind.

The new influx of nutrients will lead to new stems being produced from the centre of the plant.