The Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant native to the bogs and swamplands of North and South Carolina. It preys on insects with its uniquely shaped terminal portion of its leaves. The leaf has two primary regions: a broad flat typical leaf-like region called the leaf-base that is capable of carrying out photosynthesis and grows out of the ground, and the trapping mechanism, called the leaf-blade or lamina, at the end of the leaf that is composed of two lobes with hinged together by a midrib. Each trap usually has between two and five "trigger" hairs on each lobe with three trigger hairs on each lobe being normal. The edge of the trap is lined with teeth or finger-like cilia that lace together when the trap shuts. The leaf-base and leaf-blade (trap) are joined together by what is referred to as the petiole.

Venus Fly Traps need three basic things to flourish:

• Light
• Water
• Media

If you provide each of these three things in the proper way, you will have a healthy, happy little Venus Fly Trap as you see below in the photo. Please read the above articles in detail, but I will give a brief summary here of what a Venus Fly Trap needs.

Give them as much light as you can. Direct bright sunlight at least four hours a day is best. Water them with pure water, either distilled, rain water, or other water that has a low concentration of dissolved solids. Plant them in a proper mix of nutrient poor medium. Most people use peat, sphagnum moss, sand and perlite in some combination.

If possible, keep the ambient humidity high, though this is not critical. Venus Fly Traps can thrive in low humidity. Just be sure to keep their soil damp at all times when the humidity is low.

If you are growing your plant in less than ideal conditions, or you just want the biggest traps possible, it's best to not let them flower. Try to cut the flower stalk off as soon as you notice it. Flowering robs the plant of precious energy that it could otherwise use to make itself larger or produce better leafs and traps. Also, as a flytrap grows, it will form little offshoots with a second rosette of leaves. This offshoot will eventually form its own root system. Then, when you go to repot your venus fly trap you can gently pry the two rosettes apart and have 2 separate plants. If you cut the flower off, the plant will be more likely to form separate rosettes.