FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I'm wondered how exactly the genetics of crossing Venus Flytraps and how everything sorts out exactly. I am aware of processes like artificial selection and the variation of traits in offspring, but I have other questions about more detailed situations. Are the traits of the offspring dependent on which plant gives the pollen? Is red coloration a recessive trait, or is it something closer to codominance (the two shades of the parent plants mix) or incomplete dominance? (different parts of the plant show both of the alleles). I doubt anybody knows the answers to these questions exactly, but it would help for people who have grown Venus Flytraps from seed regularly to explain their observations. Thanks.

It's my understanding that flytrap traits are what's known as polygenetic - basically traits rely on multiple genes to be expressed. This makes breeding for particular traits quite difficult since the chances of a particular trait coming through are exponentially lower the more genes it depends on.

Red coloration seems to be more reliable though.

That seems to make sense. And especially since each gene in a polygenic trait would have different alleles making it hard for certain traits to show up. It also seems that the shape of the "teeth" of a plant seems to be pretty random. I've seen growers who've said that their seed grown plants showed a wide variety of different tooth shapes and sizes.

Hmmm interesting comments, I must say it would make sense for more flytraps to have some red coloration since the anthocyanin is supposed to act as a sort of "sunscreen" for the plants. Now Im not saying the plants' survival depends on it having red pigments, but I'm sure those with red pigmentation do better in the sun than all green varieties? Am I wrong in assuming this?

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Red flytraps need a lot more sun to do well — the anothocyanin blocks some of the chlorophyll. They generally grow slower than green flytraps (at least on my experience with ones from seed).

bananaman wrote:Red flytraps need a lot more sun to do well — the anothocyanin blocks some of the chlorophyll. They generally grow slower than green flytraps (at least on my experience with ones from seed).

Ohh okei, I thought that they actually develop their red pigments because of high light levels?

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carelerasmus wrote:

bananaman wrote:Red flytraps need a lot more sun to do well — the anothocyanin blocks some of the chlorophyll. They generally grow slower than green flytraps (at least on my experience with ones from seed).

Ohh okei, I thought that they actually develop their red pigments because of high light levels?

They do develop the pigments due to high light levels, but they pretty much always have higher pigment levels than ordinary flytraps do. This tends to result in slower growth due to masking of chlorophyll (I presume). In my experience growing from seed, there may be a few red plants with similar vigor to green ones, but most of the red ones are quite a bit slower. Just using some of last year’s seedlings as an example, some of the “normal” ones were nearly the size of a quarter when I put them outside, but all the red ones were dime sized or maybe a tad smaller.

Okei! Very interesting! Thanks

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Basically, the increased pigmentation reflects more light resulting in less that the plant can photosynthesize with so they have less energy to grow.