FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've noticed that some of my VFT's seem to grow quite differently, even among clones taken from the exact same plant. Here's a picture of some divisions from my Big Mouth that clearly shows what I mean...
Both of these were divided from the main "mother" plant I bought last year. The one on the left seems to be growing into a regular, healthy full-sized plant whereas the one of the right seems to be staying smaller and clumping, growing lots of much smaller traps very close together. Does it have something to do with the size of the rhizome? I'm not sure now but it seems like they were both pretty much the same size when I transplanted them this spring.

I've also noticed that the same sort of thing also happens when a VFT gets distressed to the point where all the leaves die completely back to the soil line before it starts sending up new growth. After it does, the new growth seem to be much smaller than the original leaves and traps were and it looks like they might be coming from multiple crowns. I can understand why being stressed to the point of near death might cause it to send up a larger number of juvenile shoots because it's the same thing as being pruned back heavily, but why would a normal, healthy plant do the same thing?

My Fine Tooth x Red seems to clump like that and divide even more than any of my others. I only bought just *one* of those last summer, but when I transplanted it this spring, I divided it into this many separate plants...
Plus this other little pot of tiny little babies too! Nobody ever told me they were going to breed like rabbits!

I'd like to know myself! My DC XL has the clumping, no stems while other pictures of DC XL's have long thick stems.

thanks for posting this in such detail, I've been wondering the same thing; some plants are growing great big growth while others seem to keep dividing and clumping and are drastically smaller.

Good question, its happened to a couple of my plants. Ones that were well established. They started putting out smaller and smaller traps and eventually turned into a huge clump. Both of them even flowered, which I found to be odd since the traps were tiny.

As Leo stated, could it be stress related? Cuttings and pullings tend to clump, as does the area that it was pulled from. Plants that are transplanted often clump, especially if there is a lot of dieback of the older traps. This could be my imagination, but plants that are generally stressed, maybe cooler, overwet conditions, often end up giving off new shoots. Maybe if you think of a plant's growth as taking the path of least resistance, like water coming out of a reservoir, if there are "leaks", then you get little "drips" (or tiny traps), from the area of leakage. A rhizome without breaks takes the path of least resistance, which is though the established growth areas, the established petioles/traps and the center growth "fountain", in the middle if the rhizome. Just a guess based on my limited experience. I would love to hear the thoughts of some more experienced growers on this subject. It could be advantageous to either cause the clumping, or to inhibit it.