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'Fly-Trap'	From	Fage	20
it was ?the most wonderful plant in the
-	wodd.?
The first reference to it came from North Carolina in 1759 and 1760. in letters from Arthur Dobbs, governor of North Carolina, to Peter Collinson of England. Dobbs remarked on its restricted range and described it as follows:
... it is a dwarf plant; the leaves like a narrow segment of a sphere, consisting of two parts, like the cap of a spring purse, the concave part outward, each of which falls hack with indented edges (like an iron spring fox trap); upon anything touching the leaves or falling between them; it hears white flowers; to this surprising plant I have given the name of Fly Trap
This description, penned more than 200 years ago, still makes a serviceable introduction to the plant.
The story of how more information came from John Bartram and his son William (who gave it the Indian name of Tipitiwichet), of how Linnaeus heard about it and of how pictures and leaves and finally the plant itself reached the Old World is fully told by Joseph Ewan in an article entitled ?Annals of the Most Wonderful Plant in the World.?
Curiosity about the Venus fly-trap continued in the 19th Century. In 1835, Moses Ashley Curtis of North Carolina published an ?Enumeration of plants growing spontaneously around Wilmington. with remarks on some new and obscure species.? Charles Darwin, upon reading Curtis and others, performed extensive experiments on the Drosera family of insectivorous plants to which the Venus fly-trap belongs. He observed their reaction to human hair, paper, cork, wood, dry meat, damp meat, albumen, boiling water and degrees of humidity. He noted the inexorable precisions of the Venus flytrap, how an insect trying to escape between the bars will surely be pushed back again into its horrid prison with closing walls, for the spikes continue to close more and more until the edge of the lobes come into contact.
Gov. Dobbs? description of this
?st ve plant? can be supplemented. The plarn is inconspicuous, growing on the ground, hidden amongst sedges and grasses. It is most showy in early summer when it blooms, the white flowers standing six to ten inches tall above the rosette of strange little leaves.
As with all carnivorous plants, the leaves are the lure and the trap. They are lobed, forming a bivalve upon a midrib, and edged with spikes. Their color varies from grades of green through purple to bright red, color variation coming probably from degrees of sunlight.
Glands along the outer line of the lobes secrete enticing juices. Other digestive glands on the inner concave surface of the lobes give them a textured look. Each lobe bears a triangle of three trigger hairs.
It seems also that the Venus fly-trap fares best where the soils are poorest and it must compete for existence by means of its carnivorous powers.
That existence depends directly upon its habitat, which is the acid soil, leached of minerals, of the coastal savannahs and wetlands. In North and South Carolina, where these requirements are supplied, the Venus fly-trap is now being carefully scrutinized and its predicament fully recognized. The decisive step must next be taken to acquire and control a meaningful part of its range, for only by saving its habitat and managing that well can this endemic plant be saved.?
I
Margaret Nygard
Born in India, educated in England, Canada and the United States, Margaret Nygard received her doctorate in English literature from the University of California. She now resides in Durham, NC, where her husband is Director of Graduate Studies in English at Duke University. The Nygards are both active conservationists, having worked in particular for the preservation of the Eno River in North Carolina, where extensive parklands are now forming adjacent to rapidly growing metropolitan areas.
	
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