Venus flytrap

The Venus flytrap (or Dionaeus flycatcher) is the most famous plant-"predator" on the entire North American continent, representing the only species of its kind.

Ancestral specimen of this plant that catches and eats flies, grasshoppers, bugs, mosquitoes and other insects, as a rule, does not exceed 15 cm. Venera blooms A flytrap with white flowers, located on a long flower-bearing stem.

The trap of carnivorous dionea consists of two valves, which remotely resemble the opening shells of mollusks. At the edges of the valves have two rows of denticles, and on the rim inside - glands, which give off a fragrant nectar. It is this smell that attracts insects into a terrible trap.

On each flat inner surface inside the trap, the flytrap has three trigger hairs, and if the insects, when they get inside, touch them-the trap immediately closes.

At first it is only slightly covered, at this time the insects still have to escape, moving back and forth. And if the insect is small, then it has the opportunity to avoid the fate of being eaten: it can flutter, slipping into the hole between the teeth.

In this case, the triggers stop stimulation, and then the Venus flytrap again fully reveals its trap, and it happens about a day later. Such a response mechanism is vital for dionia: it is precisely this that makes it possible to prevent the loss of time due to a "false response" of the trap due to foreign interference, for example, rain drops, wind sticks, twigs or chitinous insect shells.

However, if a beetle or other insect trapped in a trap can not get out of it, then the stimulation of the hairs continues, closing the trap is denser. And inside begins the digestive process. Of the glands with which the flycatcher is equipped on the inner flaps of its trap, the digestive juice begins to be very actively excreted, and soon the insect literally chokes in this liquid.

Each trap of dione is usually calculated only on three digestive processes, then it simply dies. The venus flytrap remains only a few days closed, and then, when it opens, only the shell from the former insect appears before the eyes, which the predator simply could not digest.

Dione is very often found in a pot in the house. Venus flytrap, care of which is very simple, loves a fairly bright location, but without getting hot sun rays. An excellent place for its placement is the window sill, where the morning sun gets to in the summer, and in the winter - the noon. If there is no such place, then the plant needs to be highlighted in addition.

Care for Venus Flycatcher also assumes a constant moisture substrate: it should never be parched, but too much to overflow the plant, too, should not be.

During all spring, summer or autumn months the flycatcher should be in a pot on a water-filled pail, and water must necessarily cover all the drainage holes in the pot.

It is necessary to monitor the purity of water, often to change it. Water for watering dione should be soft enough, it is best to use rain melt or peeled by filtering.

Dionea (or Venus flytrap) is successfully cultivated by many in a terrarium, a greenhouse, in a closing glass vessel, on a glassed-in loggia. In this case, some lovers of this exotic predatory plant quite successfully grow it in the open air.