Clenched Jaws & Good Soup- Venus Fly Trap
Venus fly trap awaiting it’s next meal
Hello and welcome back to another week of Rooted! This week we are Kicking off the spooky season with a new mini series that I’ve decided we will be calling the Monster mash because I have no shame. (also use on socials and make reels of each monster plant)
We’ll be covering all kinds of plants that are either linked to monsters, or monsters themselves! If you like this mini series and want to keep the halloween vibes going, be sure to check out our series from last year where we covered all of the plant-based potion ingredients from macbeth!
Anyway, now that you know what we’ll be up to. Let’s dig into the real reason you came today- Venus fly traps!
Venus fly traps or Dionaea muscipula are members of the Droseraceae.[ family with relatives like sundews and water wheels. Much like their carnivorous cousins, these guys thrive in humid environments with plenty of bugs.
I know what you’re thinking- snacking on insects is cool and all, but why are these things called venus fly traps?! And well… the answer to that is a little weirder than you might think…..
To REALLY get it, you need to know that the common name for these guys is "tippity witchet", which is believed to be a combination of tippet (a long cloth doodad that hung down from the shoulders and ended between the legs above the knees in 14th century england, and witchet, which is a super archaic term for vagina.
Once that got out, people started calling them venus fly traps because venus is largely associated with vaginas, and well they trap flies….there was also some speculation that maybe it was partially because of some men’s potential fear of toothed vaginas, but honestly that was bringing on too many “Teeth” flashbacks and I didn’t feel like subjecting you to all that today. You’re welcome.
Alternatively to the toothed vagina theory,botanist John Ellis (who is credited with “discovering the plant” by means of writing a fancy journal about it, said this was actually just the name the Cherokee people gave the plant.
Venus fly traps are happiest in bog conditions, being native to a very thin band in North and South Carolina, which was wild to learn because I always assumed they had to be from a super temperate rainforest or something. Because this area gets a lot of sun and not a ton of soil nutrients in all that sand, these guys had to evolve to get their food by…..other means. So, they did what any of us would do- they developed little snatcharineis to snap up bugs and other juicy bits so they wouldn’t be stuck struggling to outcompete their neighbors.
What’s interesting about venus fly traps is that despite so many of us being obsessed with them, we actually know very little about them. Because they are sensitive and very decomposable- we don’t have a good idea of how they actually evolved, but based on scientists best guesses, we think it went a little something like this”
First the plants figured out it was like WAY easier to eat bugs because they kept just landing on them anyway
At first they were eating big ones, but it was rough because they could just wriggle free….so then they decided they needed to be able to wrap them better, which is kind of how we got stardews….but then they realized lots of bugs could still get out of that, so they got a little faster with the snapping action. However, snapping took way more energy, and so they had to develop little hairs to determine if it was worth it…and then finally they figured out that being sticky was okay, but being able to just snap shut and digest the bug right there was really the best way for them to be able to use energy wisely- thus bringing us the venus fly trap.
Now that we’re up to speed on how we think they evolved, let’s talk a little more about how they work.
As far as we can tell, these guys use tiny hairs called trichomes, which act like super sensitive triggers, sending the message to the 2 lobes that they need to snap shut. However, it’s worth noting that they don’t just snap closed the second something touches the hairs! After a lot of studying, scientists concluded that the hairs actually need to be touched 2 or more times, and in the study they actually found that plants in higher traffic areas reacted less to stimuli than their rural counterparts….meaning not only can these plants COUNT, but they also remember and store that counting data……Really brings a new meaning to count dracula!
Shout out to our editor Kat for bringing this to my attention AND sending me some great articles…I have said it before and I’ll say it again- if you need any editing help, she really is the best!
Back to plants, once the venus fly trap has determined that something’s worth the catch, it snaps its prey in its leafy jaws, with tiny hairs locking together to keep the unfortunate bug trapped as it is slowly digested in a bath of stomach acid for the next 5-7 days. This acid is actually made up of a variety of enzymes including Phosphatase, proteinase, nuclease and amylase which help to first break down those tough exoskeletons, then get to work dissolving the insides. It takes about 3-4 days to really start get a high enough concentration of digestive secretions, but after that it kind of like a good soup
.
Once everything is goo-ified, the plant sets to work absorbing the nutrients, then eventually will reopen its tiny leaf mouth to start the process all over again! As a fun fact, you can tell how hungry these guys are based on how bright the red patch on the inside of their mouth is- the brighter the red, the hungrier the mouth!
While these leaves take about 5-7 days to work their magic, they only live for 3-4 months, but less than that if they aren’t productive, meaning they aren’t catching many flies OR they keep getting triggered without enough energy payoff.
If a trap closes more than twice having caught nothing, it’s highly likely that it will die off, which is why it’s important not to tap the traps all willy-nilly, as it takes a HUGE amount of energy for them to catch prey, and if they don’t replenish it it can easily kill the entire plant- sorry to all the venus fly traps children absolutely mangled while I was working at a nursery- we hardly knew ye.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Venus flytraps do have a few recorded uses in indigenous and modern medicine. Most notable as a cough suppressant, but it is also currently being studied as a potential cancer treatment. Before we dig into that, this is your semi-regular reminder that I am not a healthcare provider, pharmacist, or in any way qualified to tell you anything about your body and health. This particular research is still pretty new, and there is a lot we still don’t know, so take all that I am about to say with a grain of salt, and don’t start buying random supplements on the internet without doing your own research into the product, active ingredient percentages, and manufacturer.
Now that my tight 5 on supplement safety is over, the current research on Venus:
Fly traps suggest that they might help to fight and prevent cancer by being chemopreventive- meaning they help to keep cells from morphing and becoming cancer in the first place by keeping the whole system running smoothly and removing any potential trouble makers as quickly as possible. The main active chemical being studied is known as Plumbagin, which is found in a wide variety of lichen walnut trees, and plenty of other plants. In the Venus Fly Trap, it’s there to help fend off anyone who thinks it would be a tasty treat, or any germs that might want to infect them. In people however, plumbagins help with the cell cycling process, acting as a sort of assistant to the janitor crew that keeps our dying cells moving along to make room for new ones.
Venus flytraps also contain a variety of phenolic acids that function in a similar way, and have proven to be particularly helpful in the fight against pancreatic cancer.
Outside of those 2 things, some supplements contain what is referred to as “carnivora” which from what I can tell is just a basic extraction of Venus fly trap. It is often sold as a cancer preventative and aid, but one study found it to do more harm than good, especially in regards to the function of the kidney and liver in a patient fighting Hodgkin's lymphoma, where the access of carnivora actually led to Acute Interstitial Nephritis, which is basically when the tubes of the kidneys get angry and inflamed, and then eventually stops working- kind of the opposite of what anyone wants a supplement to do.
Anyway, outside of this case study, there really isn’t any other research into carnivora, so I would say to stick to better studied remedies unless you are specifically trained and part of a tradition where this practice is common.
On maybe less of a bummer note, we couldn't kick off our monster mash episode without at least pointing out that is guy is not only a technical vampire, but ALSO very much the inspiration behind the carnivorous plant that can carry a tune- Audrey 2 in little shop of horrors….and sure, maybe that plant was an alien, and maybe it kind of looks more like a pitcher plant than a fly trap, but you know what- with the bright red mouth and ability to trap and swallow prey while also pulling minimal nutrients from the soil, I’m making the case for it to be included.
If that wasn’t enough, the venus fly trap has also inspired creatures across pop culture….some highlights include venus mcflytrap from monster high (her name is hilarious to me), Venus THE flytrap from the ONLY video game I really get- Little Big Planet, the guys from mario, and about a billion other monsters.
Interestingly Charles Darwin was slightly obsessed with these, and his son grew up somehow even more invested?! AND Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle of book and ghosty/hating Harry Houdini fame ALSO loved them, and thought they might be related to the Yateveo tree in Africa ... .an interesting early fandom to say the least.
While it's unlikely you’ll stumble upon one of these in the wild (unless you’re from the Carolinas in which case - what’s it like to be god’s favorite?!) I hope that next time you see one you say hello without touching them, and think a little bit about how weird they really are.
That’s all I've got for this week, but I’ll be back soon to keep this monster mash going!
Sources:
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Plants-and-Fungi/Venus-Flytrap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_flytrap#Proposed_evolutionary_history
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747514/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4009267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747514/
