Tag Archives: Plant

Don’t get caught in the Venus flytrap!

• Venus flytraps are a species of small insect-eating plants that grow from rhizomes, that are native to eastern subtropical United States.
• The scientific name of the Venus flytrap is Dionaea muscipula, and it is from the Droseraceae family, the family of sundews; and the species is the only one in its genera.
• ‘Venus flytraps’ are also known as ‘Venus fly traps’ and ‘Venus’ flytraps’; and they are of a bright green to red colour, with up to seven leaves that have a pink to red interior surface; and the plant grows to approximately 20 cm (7.9 inches) in diameter.
• The traps of the Venus flytrap are also the leaves, and they are a hinged pair of almost semi-circles, with what look like eyelashes on the outer edges.
• Two to five trigger hairs are found inside each part of the Venus flytrap trap, which triggers the trap to close on contact with an object, and they can close in less than a second, at approximately 100 milliseconds.

A Venus Flytrap
Image courtesy of Alex Chief/Flickr

• Once something is trapped, Venus flytraps exert digestion fluids to dissolve the inner body of the prey into an absorbable liquid, while the inedible exoskeleton is disposed of after the traps reopen.
• To avoid closing from non-food triggers such as dust, Venus flytrap traps will only close if more than one of its trigger hairs is touched in a period of twenty seconds from the first touch.
• Venus flytraps most often capture and eat ants and spiders, but they also catch other insects including beetles; and it takes from 5 to 12 days to digest its caught prey, the time dependent on the prey size and other conditions.
• If an inedible object falls into a Venus flytrap trap, the trap will reopen and dispose of the object in about half a day after trapping.
• Venus flytraps bloom small flowers coloured white, that cluster at the top of the plant, and after flowering the plant often produces many tiny seeds that are black in colour.

Bibliography:
Diaonaea muscipula (Venus Flytrap), n.d, KEW Royal Botanical Gardens, http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/dionaea-muscipula-venus-flytrap

The Mysterious Venus’ Flytrap, n.d, Botanical Society of America, http://botany.org/bsa/misc/carn.html

Venus Flytrap, 2016, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_flytrap

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Sand food looks like something from the beach rather than from the desert!

• Sand food is a species of flowering herb found in deserts of the south-western area of the United States.
• The scientific name of sand food is Pholisma sonorae and it is from the family Boraginaceae, the family of borages.
• Sand food is found on sand dunes, and has a single scaly stem that can grow up to 1.8 metres (6 feet) underground.
• Sand food has a brown, grey or cream coloured, roundish head with a diameter of up to 12.7 cm (5 inches), shaped like a mushroom, that sits above the sand.
• To obtain moisture and nutrients, sand food plants use their long underground stem to take in water from the surrounding area, and attach themselves to another plant’s roots to absorb some of the host plant’s nutrients, like a parasite.

Sandfood
Image courtesy of Pacific Southwest Region/Flickr

• The small flowers of the sand food plant often sit in a circle on the top of the head, and they are purple to violet in colour.
• Sand food heads are generally partially concealed by sand, however when the sand is moved from around the plant, the stem and head combination is visually similar to a mushroom.
• Exactly how sand food seeds are distributed is uncertain; however it is likely that the ever-shifting nature of sand, or insects or small mammals, bring the seeds deep under the sand.
• Sand food flowers bloom in the months from April to June, and are covered in hairs that effectively reduce the effects of the heat of the sun.
• Historically, the stems of sand food plants have been consumed by Native Americans, either cooked, or eaten raw; and as of 2012, they were an ‘at risk’ plant, mainly due to habitat disturbance by vehicles and habitat loss.

Bibliography:
Grant B, Sandfood Plant Info: Learn Facts About Sandfood Plants, 2016, Gardening Know How, http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/sandfood/sandfood-plant-info.ht

Pholisma sonorae, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholisma_sonorae

Pholisma Sonorae: A Strange Looking Flowering Plant, 2016, Amusing Planet, http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/02/pholisma-sonorae-strange-looking.html

Pholisma Sonorae aka “Sand Food”, n.d, Atlas Obscura, http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sand-food