More Flowers on my Little Carnivores

I posted earlier about the little carnivorous plants which my kids picked at the Van Dusen Plant Sale in Spring of 2008. They lived happily in the garden over the summer, catching quite a number of spiders and flies, and then kept me company on my kitchen windowsill over the Winter.

I meant to place them back outside this summer, but somehow I have bonded with these little guys, and don't feel as motivated to put them back outside. It didn't help that first the Venus Flytrap surprised me by sending up its beautiful white flower.

Then the Sundew decided to beat that by sending up a stalk which has been showing off a succession of pink flowers, about 30 in total, over the last couple of months.

I wish I had paid more attention to the timing of it, but it is something like this: A single flower opens every second day. Each flower lasts only one day. The bud closest to the plant opens first, and then the next, until the one at the very tip. But as each flower emerges, the flower stalk bends at that point, so the flower is at the top, and the buds curl down below it. Here it is in June, half way through the blooms:

Now, just as it has about 4 more buds to go, a second flower stalk has started. How delightful.

Both the Sundew and the Venus Flytrap have produced offshoots, which I should be able to pot up if I want to share these little wonders with a friend. They are bog plants which like full sun, so they enjoy the window, but are easy to care for, I just top up the water (pretty much daily in the summer) in the outer cup whenever the water level drops too low.

The tags on the plants read:

Red Cape Sundew
Drosera capensis "Red"

and

Venus Flytrap
Dionaea muscipula "Regular"

Both are from Hawaiian Botanicals and Water Gardens, 604-270-7712, http://www.hawaiianbotanicals.com/

Currently, they only ship within Canada. They direct US visitors to search by Google, or visit http://www.cobraplant.com/.