FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I know this may be a silly question, but why do some traps have red coloration inside but other's don't.
I have one plant that has bright red coloration in 1 trap, and another trap is totally bright green. Then a few have small amounts of red in it.

Is there a reason or significance for that?

The red in a trap is usually a trate of that plant , you will get some VFT's call all green , other variegated or have touches of red and others all red ECT , the all green will never redden up , but some other VFT's if exposed to good sun light will redden up naturally , I find the Dark red traps to catch more pray as well , acting as a signal to many insects a free meal here , dont know the science reason for it !
J

I read somewhere that anthocyanin (the red pigment) essentially act as 'sunscreens' to protect the plant tissue from intense light. I think its true for some orchids, but I'm not sure for venus flytrap.

fattytuna wrote:I read somewhere that anthocyanin (the red pigment) essentially act as 'sunscreens' to protect the plant tissue from intense light. I think its true for some orchids, but I'm not sure for venus flytrap.

It's true that the red dye, anthocyanin, reflects a significant portion of one of the major frequency bands that plants use, and that a red plant can accommodate intense light much better without burning because of that fact, and that red plants often need more light than green plants as a result, in order to grow at about the same rate as their green-leafed friends. The red inside the traps (not all over the leaves) might have been developed by evolutionary processes to attract insects, however, even though I believe it is caused by the development of the same organic dye (anthocyanin).

Got some interesting info from this article: http://www.wdc-jp.biz/pdf_store/jspcmb/ ... _3_235.pdf
Wonder if you guys have read it before.

"The article was studying the effects of the five macro - components and sucrose
in half strength MS (1/2 MS) agar medium on red-color pigmentation in the plant bodies of Dionaea muscipula and Drosera spathulata generated from multiple shoots in vitro.

In 1/2 MS agar medium modified with 10.31 mM NH4N03 and 9.40 mM KN03 and supplemented with 0.75 or O% sucrose, the subcultured plants continuously proliferated by multiple shoots and generated large, green-colored plants, while with dilution of those nitrogen components and increase of sucrose to 1.5%, the red-color anthocyanin pigmentation spread from the glands or glandular hairs to the entire leaves and the plant sizes and dry weight decreased in inverse proportion to the depth of red color.

...

Insects contain total nutrients of N (99- 121 g/kg dry weight), P (6- 14.7 g/kg), K (1.5-
31.8 g/kg), Ca (22.5 g/kg) and Mg (0.94 glkg) (Reichle et al., 1969; Dixon et al., 1980; Watson et
aL, 1982) that are somewhat smilar to the medium requirements studied here. Prey would be more attracted to and captured by red-colored plants of Drosera species than by green-colored ones. Generally, carnivorous plants might have adaptation strategies to barren, wet and low pH soil conditions by interaction between leaf carnivory and low root consumption of nutrients (Adamec, 1997). The present study suggests that the two species would
turn red color when they became deficient in nitrogen compounds to make themselves attractive to prey and would catch more prey if they had too low a root consumption of llutrients to survive, grow and propagate. The anthocyanin pigmentation in the two species may make it possible to be biosensitive to nitrogen consumption uptake."

Basically, in simple terms, when the plant is sufficiently supplied with nutrients(i.e. it has eaten more insects), it is stronger and grows more. However, it cuts back on red-pigment production.(or red pigments are masked by increased chlorophyll production. The article did not discuss this.)
When the plant is nutrient deficient, the plant becomes more strongly coloured to attract more insects(the ones with nutrients) for the plant to grow more healthily.(as in the study, those who were red were less robust than those who were sufficiently supplied with nutrients(the green ones))

That's probably why feeding your plant insects may cause it to have less pigmentation. I found that an interesting read and decided to share it.

Seems like there's another version of the article, albeit with more slips in grammar, found here: http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/ar ... p91_96.pdf

Additional info I got was, when you move the VFT clones from the mother plant to a less populated spot, the traps would get bigger. Also, removal of old leaves from the plant body could also make traps larger. Very large or very small traps may not exhibit active trap closure. Traps with an average length of 1cm were just right for active trap movement. Inducing of trap closure, however, made plant growth slower.

Now don't go trimming away all your old leaves because of this. Don't hold me accountable for killing your plants.

I refer to Matt's observation that VFTs colour more during late summer/early autumn. (http://www.flytrapcare.com/carnivorous- ... Color.html)

I think I could relate this to why tree leaves become more orangey-red as it approaches winter.
First, plants need to constantly produce chlorophyll as chlorophyll is easily decomposed in bright sunlight and/or cold temperatures[1]. As sunlight intensity decreases, less chlorophyll is produced. When leaves appear green, it is because they contain an abundance of chlorophyll that masks other pigment colors. As summer turns to autumn, decreasing light levels cause chlorophyll production to slow. However, the decomposition rate of chlorophyll remains constant, so the green color will fade from the leaves, making plants redder[2].

Second, anthocyanin(red pigment) production requires sucrose and light[2].

Near dormancy period, VFTs cut back in terms of leaf growth. This may increase the concentration of sucrose in the plant, encouraging it to react to form anthocyanins, increasing red intensity.

Also, temperatures start to drop during this period and temperatures just above freezing promote the production of anthocyanin[1].

Red pigment production could also be due to light intensity as high light intensity stresses the plant, thus, the plant produces more anthocyanin to act as a natural sunscreen[2]. From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC125091/ , it says that red leaves were able to recover more rapidly from high-light stress treatment than leaves without anthocyanin.

[1]:http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek/fa ... lcolr.html
[2]:http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa082602a.htm

Of course, don't trust me/these sources 100%. I'm just a regular guy who got quite excited after reading these.

Still a bit lost. Indoors my plants the most colorful they have ever been but since taking them outside in even more intense brighter lighting they all went green. Even my most colorful plant at the time (an FTS Flaming lips, highly recommended) is nearly all green. The only plant that’s growing all red is an FTS Maroon Monster. I do think heat plays a huge role in red interiors. Indoors was a constant 80-90 sometimes 92 but for a short period. Outdoors in the greenhouse temps get up to 115 and a constant above 95 while the suns shining in.

Ill have a pic of my temps as of writing this

Adrien wrote:Still a bit lost. Indoors my plants the most colorful they have ever been but since taking them outside in even more intense brighter lighting they all went green.

Right, that's to be expected depending on the color temperature of the lights you're using. Outdoor light this time of the year primarily promotes growth, not coloring, so flytraps will be mostly green as they pump out new, healthy growth. Later in the summer and fall, they will start to add color to that growth.

My typical flytraps grow in same pot together in the same location, yet some traps are deep red, larger and they lie close to the ground. Other traps on another typical vft are lime green (no red whatsoever) and grow to various sizes and vertically straight up into the air. What could explain these stark differences considering same pot, same typical Dionaea muscipula and same location and water?

It is just a difference in genetics.

crich wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:05 pmMy typical flytraps grow in same pot together in the same location, yet some traps are deep red, larger and they lie close to the ground. Other traps on another typical vft are lime green (no red whatsoever) and grow to various sizes and vertically straight up into the air. What could explain these stark differences considering same pot, same typical Dionaea muscipula and same location and water?

To put it in human terms: Why are some people tall and others are short? Why are some people skinny and others are as wide as they are tall? Why do some people have dark skin and others have pale skin? It's genetics, environment, or combination of the two. Venus flytraps are no different.