Venus Flytrap Plant: The 5 Coolest Varieties & Cultivars
The Venus Flytrap Plant is one of the most famous of all carnivorous plants, thanks to TV and movies. A lot of carnivorous plant growers consider it to be the “gateway drug,” to carnivorous plants. Even Charles Darwin was fond of the Venus Flytrap, once calling it “one of the most wonderful in the world.”
This plant has many varieties and cultivars around for you to buy and plant; however, they are mostly extinct in the USA. The native varieties can be found in North and South Carolina. These lovely plants use sweet nectar to attract insects, and its trap seals on these unsuspecting bugs when they touch the plant’s hairs inside of its trap.
Do to the destruction of these plant habitats, they are now considered endangered species. Some horticulturists have tried introducing these plants to new areas in the country, but this can end up doing more harm than good. The plant is considered a hard plant to grow, but as long as you understand exactly what you need to do to keep it thriving, you will have no issues at all.
You may also read our article related to How to Grow Venus Flytraps from Seeds.
The 5 Coolest Varieties of the Venus Flytrap Plant
'Bohemian Garnet'
This Venus flytrap plant is a hybrid of Dionaea’ Royal Red’ and Dionaea’ Sawtooth’ that came out in 2007.
Miroslav Srba that described it in a newsletter, mentioned that it had the red color of the Royal Red plant, but the rest of the characteristics were from the Sawtooth plant.
It is only 1.6 to 2.4 inches across was named by Miroslav Srba after its country of origin, which is the Czech Republic. In their language, it can be called Dionaea’ Český Granát’.
'Fused Tooth'
The most noticeable characteristic of the Fused Tooth is its webbed teeth that are seen during summer.
During the winter, it resembled any other Venus flytrap plant and was described in 1998 by Peter D’Amato in his book, The Savage Garden. However, there was no picture when it was registered, so it was not officially registered until 2004 when Thomas Carow of Germany supplied a photograph.
' Sawtooth'
This Venus flytrap’s teeth are deep and divided, and it was originally registered in 2000 with its natural habitat of North Carolina. It is red all over and has serrations on the edges of the traps.
Compared to other Venus flytrap plants, this one is a lot smaller and takes longer to grow. It does not grow past 2 to 3 inches across generally.
'Wacky Traps'
This Venus flytrap plant was cloned by Cresco Nursery, which is in the Netherland by using tissue culture.
It was discovered by Mike Ross, in a tray full of mutant flowers. It resembles Bart Simpson’s hair from The Simpsons and sometimes is called that as well.
It grows very slowly and has thick petioles and traps. It tends to have a problem with closing its trap fast. It ends up taking the trap many minutes to close when the hairs in its “mouth” are stimulated.
Barry Rice officially registered this plant in 2006 to the International Carnivorous Plant Society.
'Big Mouth’
This Venus flytrap plant has an enormous mouth, hence its funny name.
This plant has large, red-mouth shaped traps and produces petioles (the leafy stalks that are part of the trap but in the soil) that are upright.
These petioles are always short, so as this Venus flytrap grows, it ends up looking like teeth and mouths waiting for its next meal.
The trap’s inside are a deep red whereas outside of it is usually green. Some of the traps have a red coloring that ends up over the edge of the it’s teeth.
Important Venus Flytrap Plant Facts
There are some things you need to know about the Venus flytrap if you become a grower of one. A lot of people enjoy feeding them and watching them close on the bugs. However, overfeeding can become a problem with these plants, especially if you go around and feed every trap it has at once. It takes a lot of energy to close its traps, so you are just exhausting it and making it lethargic by doing this.
Triggering the traps is very cruel to this plant, along with overfeeding it. If you want to feed your plant yourself, do not feed the traps more than once a week and only feed two every week. There are a lot of cultivars for the Venus flytrap, but only one species, the Dionaea muscipula. Because of this, a lot of the flytraps look very different from each other, and you may think they are another species! But they are not, they are all the same.
These plants take five years or more to “grow” into adulthood. Faster than a human, of course, but can be considered a bit slow for a plant. These plants, when in the wild, maybe extinct soon due to habitat destruction and some poaching going on. Never buy a plant from somewhere that says it is wild. Only get from nurseries that grow them themselves, as poaching these plants is illegal! Mostly a misdemeanor, some counties in North Carolina have made it a felony crime, and it may become a felony statewide as well.
You may also read our other article about the 10 Strange Facts About The Venus Flytrap.
