FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey, I'm pretty new to the forum but from what I've seen around the internet, this seems to be the most helpful place I've encountered so far. I've been growing my venus fly trap (I call it Trapezoid) in my college dorm under a couple of fluorescent lights, and much to my surprise it sprouted this wacky shaped trap that I later discovered was going to grow into a flower. Ignoring pretty much every caution that flowering could kill a VFT, I allowed it to grow and about a month later it has bloomed (couldnt help myself, I was interested in growing new mini Trapezoids from seed)...it seems to be doing really well, many of the traps are producing a deep red coloration in the traps (although the rest of the plant remains green, I have no idea what type of VFT it is )but I had a few questions about the flowering process:

when it is pollinated, do the flower petals curl inward toward the center of the flower? I'll attach a picture, you can also see my snake plant in the background...and also a fork. any feedback about how to go about pollinating the flowers that havent bloomed yet would also be helpful, and if necessary I can upload some more pictures. thanks guys

When the stigma looks fuzzy, just put some polle onto it from the anthers! Thats just it. My vft is also flowering now and only has 1 flower which hasn't opened yet! And the rest are turning black with plump ovaries which seems to be full of seeds!

its just hard to see the grains of pollen...theyre like little tiny invisible specks, so i cant really tell if its pollinated...guess I'll just have to wait and see, hopefully I can get at least a few seeds~!

A Venus Flytrap flower cannot be pollinated until 1 to 1.5 days after it opens, but should be pollinated with fresh pollen from a flower that has just opened. So the older flowers are pollinated with pollen from younger flowers. A small artist's paintbrush or other tools can be used to gather pollen to place on the stigma at the center of the older flower.

(To see the photo below at full size, first click the magnifier at the upper left corner of the image, then in the larger version that pops up in the center of the browser window, click the expand icon in the lower right corner of the image.)

Once your plant has produced seeds, you may find the article on growing Flytraps from seed at the FlytrapCare.com main site interesting and useful--

• Growing Flytraps from Seed: http://www.flytrapcare.com/growing-venu ... seeds.html

ahh perfect! one of my flowers is curling up just like the one in the third frame, its just kinda hard to see in the one i uploaded...thanks for the pic

WackyDelly88 wrote:ahh perfect! one of my flowers is curling up just like the one in the third frame

Well, all flowers will curl up like that regardless of whether they're successfully pollinated or not. You'll have to wait a few more days or even weeks to see if you noticed the stigma swelling. That should indicate whether or not you'll get seeds, though sometimes it's hard to tell just by looking. The only sure fire way to know if pollination was successful is to wait until the flower dries up and cracks open or you crack it open yourself after it dries (sometimes they don't split open on their own).

i see. well it would be a shame for the plant to go through such a draining process if it doesnt even produce any seeds, so hopefully I pollinated it correctly...

Steve, I'm sure1,000,000 people have asked you but can you pollinate a VFT by itself?

dantt99 wrote:Steve, I'm sure1,000,000 people have asked you but can you pollinate a VFT by itself?

Yes, but it's a little hard. Usually by the time the stigma has opened and is receptive to pollen, most of the pollen of that particular flower has fallen off of the anthers or been knocked off by the wind or insects, and the filaments that the pollen-bearing anthers are on have dropped away from the pistil and stigma at the flower's center.

I often use an artist's brush to gather any pollen I can that has fallen onto the petals and pollinate a flower with some of its own pollen. Also, I suppose one could gather the pollen on the first day, collect it onto paper, plastic or foil that can be stored overnight in the refrigerator for use the next day in pollinating the same flower as its stigma becomes receptive.

*update*
nearly all of the flowers in the picture have either bloomed or are about to, and there seems to be another flower stalk growing near the base of the original. I probably wont allow this one to grow, but I've heard that you can cut it off and plant it and it will form new traps around where its sticking out of the moss. does anyone know if this is true? and if so, how tall should the flower stalk be before i snip it off and try to plant it next to the mother plant? thanks in advance

yes it is true you can get plantlets from flower stalk,you need it to be about an inch tall or so before you just snap it off ;D

very cool! I'll give it a try, thanks for the quick response

no problem its what im here for lol

WackyDelly88 wrote:I've heard that you can cut it off and plant it and it will form new traps around where its sticking out of the moss. does anyone know if this is true? and if so, how tall should the flower stalk be before i snip it off and try to plant it next to the mother plant? thanks in advance

Yes, this is true. Look for "Flower Stalks" under the Vegetative propagation section in this article:
http://www.flytrapcare.com/propagation- ... traps.html

That is a great link, I must've read it 5 or more times.