Expert: Christopher Littrell - 4/28/2009

Question
my venus flytraps are about to flower. I was just wondering how you create hybrids with venus flytraps, just like you do with sarracenia. (For example: How did people make the piranha venus flytrap) Do you just rub the flowers together?

Answer
Hello splitter,

All Venus Flytraps are the same species, so there is no such thing as hybridizing Venus Flytraps with one another. It is difficult, but possible, to cross Flytraps with at least one species of Sundew, but the plantlets all died off when that was tried.

The variations you see in Flytraps, like the Red Dragon, Piranha, Dente, and so forth are all actually genetic variations found in all Flytraps. Just like humans made wolves into dogs, in all their variation from Chihuahua to Great Dane, humans also saw differences in individual Flytraps and simply pollinated the plants that showed the most similar characteristics that they wanted to emphasize. Over many generations of such pollination among plants that only showed the most pronounced features that the grower wanted, an end result occurred of a Flytrap with all red coloration, short teeth, double traps, and so forth. You can do that simply by cross-pollinating only certain plants together by rubbing the flowers together as you suggested, or by rubbing a cotton swab or paint brush in the flowers one after another and ensuring that different plants with the same characteristics are the cross-pollination recipients of that pollen from one another.

Christopher