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We bought one of these for my daughter yesterday - a Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula. Of course, the one we bought doesn't look as good, probably due to mishandling by the retailer. I hadn't realized that Dionaea only naturally grows in southern North Carolina and our big problem is finding a place that will give the plant six or so hours of sunlight without frying it in the Arizona heat. I may have to make a terrarium.
The species was discovered by Arthur Dobbs, Governor of North Carolina between 1754 and 1765, who called it "the great wonder of the vegetable kingdom." Over a hundred years later, Darwin wrote about the species in one of his lesser known works, Insectivorous Plants (1875, see especially Chapter XIII), describing Dionaea as "one of the most wonderful plants in the world."
A recent study (American Journal of Botany, 2002) has used genetic evidence to argue that "snap-traps are derived from flypaper-traps and have a common ancestry among flowering plants, despite the fact that this mechanism is used by both a terrestrial species and an aquatic one. Genetic and fossil evidence for the close relationship between these unique and threatened organisms indicate that carnivory evolved from a common ancestor within this caryophyllid clade at least 65 million years ago." The wonderful thing here is that the study confirms Darwin's own hypothesis about the origin of Dionaea. See, evolutionary biology can make testable predictions!
But, an ID supporter crys (see here, for example), surely the capture mechanism is irreducibly complex? I mean, it's just like that mousetrap that Michael Behe talks about. Well, no.
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A good buddy of mine was huge into exotic plants and he kept quite a few of these along with pitcher plants. Your best bet to ensure humidity and appropriate lighting is a tank. Not quite the gift for a kid, but very interesting plant indeed! Good luck, I'm sure you'll be able to take care of such a fickle plant.
Whatever you do, don't water the flytrap with CAP water! Use rainwater or distilled water; hard chlorinated water will shorten Venus flytrap's life.
I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC in the early 70's. We were playing war games in the woods one day when I walked into a small clearing and was dumbstruck. The ground was virtually carpeted by Venus flytraps; at least a quarter acre. I'd never seen one before, and seeing so many in one place was a memorable experience. I took one home where it quickly died due to my incompetence.
"I may have to make a terrarium."
You should definitely make a terrarium. Flytraps are very sensitive to dry conditions and over-exposure to sunlight. Plant food (ie: EZ-Gro) in the soil is bad for them,too.
You don't necessarily need to put it in a tank - I have grown them successfully with the pot half-submerged in water (i.e. so long as your flytrap constantly has "wet feet" it should flourish). Oh - no fertiliser though, and an environment with some insects might help... ;-)
Living here in NC, it is very easy to keep the flytraps alive - on a shady porch in summer, inside in winter. Bottled water (non-Flouridated) is fine for watering if you are out of distilled water.
Great fun! I collected all kinds of carnivorous plants as a child (all 5 major types), I hope your's does well. If she really likes it, California Carnivores (highly recomended) has a beautiful red variety ( http://www.californiacarnivores.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdI… ), and much, much more.
For an even better trap I love the aquatic Utricularia. Ok its best seen under a weak micropscope - but using negative pressure to suck in a small bug is so cool. See them in the wild too if you like bogs.
It should be one of Darwin's more famous monographs. Maybe you can promote it some, John?
Of course fertilizer is bad for it. It eats bugs because the soil it grows in is poor in nitrogen, right? If one makes the soil nitrogen rich -- and most fertilizers do at least that -- it makes the poor plant think you don't like it.
(Now watch Casey Luskin seize on that last sentence as if Luskin has no sense of writing or metaphor, and no knowledge of insectivorous plants.)
The coastal area of North and South Carolina is home to three different carniverous plants, the Venus Flytrap, pitcher plant and the bladderwort or sundew (memory fails at times) Flytraps are generally found within 75 miles of Wilmington, NC and nowhere else in the world. Reading the creationist's blog on flytraps being proof of ID, I had to wonder what he thought the purpose of the design was. Most plants function well without additional animal protein and the pitcher plant, from personal observation, seems to be a much more effective and efficient insect trapping system.
Looking at the complexity of the flytrap and the simplicity of the pitcher plant and the relative success of each system, I suddenly experienced an epiphany. ID is correct and God is Rube Goldberg.