dedicated to advice and pictures of the most famous of all carnivorous plants
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To help growth VFTs must catch and digest flies but how do they do this? Read on to find out. A VFT will produce a sweet smelling nectar on all of its traps (only flies can smell it, ) this, along with bright colours of the trap will lure the fly in. A brightly coloured trap helps to lure in the fly however not all plants have bright traps. Once the fly lands on the trap it MUST touch the small trigger hairs inside twice, then the trap will shut over half-way trapping the fly inside. The trigger hairs are small clear, pointy objects, their are 6-8 of these inside each trap. A trigger hair The trap will only shut over half the way so that if a small fly, twig or anything that is not a fly lands in the trap, it will not fully shut and waste energy trying to digest it. To prevent a fly from escaping when the trap is half shut rows of barbs (look like trigger hairs but longer) will seal over the top like a cage to stop escape. a half shut trap If the trap has caught a fly, the fly must touch the trigger hairs 10-12 more times, the trap will then completely shut and begin to digest the fly. After about a week the trap will reopen to leave the grizzly remains of the fly. the remains of a fly - nasty! |
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If your VFT lives indoors then you will need to feed it. DO NOT feed it anything but flies, most other meats are too hard for it to digest and some will rot inside the trap and spred fungus to the rest of the plant. This will kill your VFT. If you do need to feed your Venus Fly Trap then you must catch flies, all you will need is a net. Once you have your flies in the net seal off one end with your finger, now there is no escape! Once you have reached the place you keep your plants close all windows, doors and any other means of escape. Now try to grip your fly by the wings but do not crush it, begin lowering it down into the gaping mouth of the trap (at this point it may help humming a sad song.) Next instead of letting the fly go near the trap (it will simply fly away) put your fingers into the the trap. The trap will close on your fingers then let go of the fly and quickly pull your fingers out, there you have fed your venus fly trap! It is possible to overfeed a VFT, if you have not fed it for a couple of months then you must feed it a fly then 3 weeks later another to get it back on food. However I feed mine about 5 flies every 2 weeks (somtimes more) and it does fine. Remember VFTs do not need to be fed Hungry? |
All text on the above page is copyright to me the webmaster 2003-2005. Some of the images on this page are used by permission of sarracenia.com.
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