FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi,

(I got a comment from Matt and he suggested I post this here)
I live in Miami and have 2 venus fly traps sitting on my windowsill. I feed them rainwater and they are thriving.....they both just flowered, but one of the plants flowering stalk was extra long and now that the flowers have shrivelled off (with 17 flowers!), and I noticed there are many small 'venus fly trap heads' growing in the middle of the stalk in 2 different places. Right now I'm counting (5 heads that I can see). I've been searching for this phenomenon on different blogs and was wondering if this happens to all plants? Also, how exactly would I cut and plant these (so they grow into new plants)?
Thanks! Here is a photo:

Thanks for posting a photo. That is so cool! I wish one of my numerous flytraps that flowered would have done that. I think that if you leave the little plantlets on the stalk for a while and plant them when the stalk starts to turn black from the top down, they should turn into their own plants.

Personally I don't have any experience with this, but I have read about it. Perhaps one of the other members on the forum will chime in with more experience. Thanks again for sharing the photo. Very cool!

Matt

Very interesting, I have not seen this occur with any of my plants but I have seen writings about this occurring from time to time. I do know that in tissue culture work, (micropropagation) the stem is routinely employed as viable propagation material. So growth from this location does not surprise me. I will see what I can dig up in some of my literature. I am assuming that it may be partly genetic and partly environmentally induced growth behavior. In the mean time I agree with Matt, you are doubly blessed with seeds and potentially new plants.

Best regards,
Curtis

Matt wrote:I think that if you leave the little plantlets on the stalk for a while and plant them when the stalk starts to turn black from the top down, they should turn into their own plants.

Sorry, wanted to clarify this. Once the stalk starts turning black at the top, you should try cutting the plantlets on the stalk off and planting them in peat moss to see if they take root. I'm not sure whether or not roots will form on the stalk, but I kind of doubt it.

I was able to find reference to the plantlets growing from the flower stock. A book written in 1974 by James and Patricia Pietropaolo titled “The World of Carnivorous Plants” actually had an image of this phenomenon. He writes,

“The peduncle below the flower is usually devoid of appendages. In rare cases bracts develop on the peduncle, and in the axil of the bract (the space between the peduncle and bract) a plantlet will develop complete with roots. We have never seen more than five plantlets develop on one peduncle.”
He does not offer an explanation on what initiates the formation of plantlets. I take from this that eventually roots will form and plantlets can be taken and planted in time. I hope that this helps a little with this unique happening. Please keep us posted on future events with this plant.

Best regards,
Curtis

Thanks for looking that up Carl. It is quite an interesting phenomenon. Please keep us posted with how things progress and photos if you have time jensss.

Hello, I have read that its sometimes best to cut the flowering stalk off if you see it growing.. but obviously you guys do not...
so.. which would be best for a brand new plant [brought from a store, not grown from a seed]

You can grow new plants by cutting the flower stalk into sections and placing them horizontally on some media. Well I think thats how it's done, there's a post somewhere on another forum about it, I think it was CPUK Forum or it could be the ICPS one.