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Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 6:31 pm
by Steve_D
Spring Anomalous Growth Time!

Most of my Venus Flytraps are breaking dormancy with a vengeance, so to speak, and in the vigorous initial burst of growth in Spring, anomalous growth often happens: leaves with no traps or more than one trap, petiole flanges with lots of points almost like the spines of the traps, etc. In this case (photo below, taken this morning, March 9, 2011) the leaf is growing strong and wide, but with no trap. Instead, it's putting up numerous growths at the top of the petiole. This is one of Matt's and my seed-grown plants. :D
trapless-VFT-leaf-anomaly.jpg
trapless-VFT-leaf-anomaly.jpg (58.85 KiB) Viewed 3899 times
Bonus picture! Flytrap open for business again, taken same day as photo above (today, March 9, 2011)
FlytrapOpenForBusinessAgain.jpg
FlytrapOpenForBusinessAgain.jpg (69.83 KiB) Viewed 3855 times

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 7:57 pm
by victor
That's so cool! Yet how did the plant make such a mutation???

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:04 pm
by Darkrai283
vfts just sometimes make wierd leaves and traps in the spring when they have a burtst of spring growth.

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:17 pm
by jht-union
Muy interesante steve, se ve impresionante, me imagino que esto pasa por el hambre de obtener sol y despues por el hambre de atrapar insectos, un ejemplo muy interesante que la planta asi sea carnivora, se beneficia primero de sol antes que comer insectos!

Very interesting Steve, looks awesome, I think this happens because the plant is hungry of getting sun, a very interesting example that shows that the plant even thought is carnivorous, they first benefit from sun and then eating insects!

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:17 pm
by Matt
Very cool Steve. It's still a bit too early on with the spring growth here to notice anything like that on my flytraps. Though I did see 3 or 4 leaves with oddities similar to that last spring in late March or early April.

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:43 pm
by Jaws
Interesting photo, cheers.

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 12:52 am
by dantt99
That's an interesting mutation....
I love the pic of the big trap, is that just a typical?

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:43 am
by Steve_D
dantt99 wrote:I love the pic of the big trap, is that just a typical?
It's a young B52. :)

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:59 am
by dantt99
I figured that it was some vigorous large clone :)

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:38 am
by Grey
Lovely, Steve! I, too am experiencing this. I was worried it was something untoward but am glad to see it's just an over excited venus fly trap! It's a fascinating anomaly once you know what on Earth it is.

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:06 pm
by Steve_D
Grey wrote:It's a fascinating anomaly once you know what on Earth it is.
Yes, Venus Flytraps produce all sorts of weird shapes and types of growth. :) How's Mr. Nomnom doing this year? (the plant in your Forum avatar)

Re: Anomalous Spring Flytrap Growth

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 6:13 pm
by Grey
He seems all right, thank you for asking. He's divided in two and both divisions are exploding with new growth. They are continuing to divide but I'm going to wait for a while before doing anything else with them (as I've had to repot them twice already but luckily did not disturb the roots too much).

We should be getting a lot more sun soon, which will be a huge relief for me as I was concerned my plants didn't go through dormancy correctly. I think my fears have been unwarrented. I cut his flower stalk as well which is now in one of my propagators.

I'm running out of room! Hehe.