Venus flytrap

Dionaea muscipula

Also calledTippitiwitchet (historic Carolina name) · Dionée attrape-mouche (French) · Venusfliegenfalle (German) · Atrapamoscas (Spanish) · 捕蝇草 bǔyíngcǎo (Chinese) · Hae-torigusa ハエトリグサ (Japanese)

A plant that counts. Its hinged leaf-traps snap shut in about a tenth of a second, but only after two touches of the trigger hairs within about 20 seconds, and it starts making digestive enzymes only after more touches. In the wild it grows only in a small area of the Carolinas.

The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native to the temperate and subtropical wetlands of North Carolina and South Carolina, on the East Coast of the United States. Although various modern hybrids have been created in cultivation, D. muscipula is the only species of the monotypic genus Dionaea. It is closely related to the waterwheel plant and the cosmopolitan sundews (Drosera), all of which belong to the family Droseraceae. Dionaea catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a "jaw"-like clamping structure, which is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves; when an insect makes contact with the open leaves, vibrations from the prey's movements ultimately trigger the "jaws" to shut via tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. Additionally, when an insect or spider touches one of these hairs, the trap prepares to close, only fully enclosing the prey if a second hair is contacted within (approximately) twenty seconds of the first contact. Triggers may occur as quickly as 1⁄10 of a second from initial contact. Wikipedia