White blooms shoot up from the compact body of the Venus flytrap plant, providing an unfortunate beacon for would-be poachers.
As an avid Smithsonian magazine reader, I was happy to find I could follow news from the publication on Twitter. A recent “tweet” mentioned an article in the February issue about the Venus flytrap, a plant native to only North and South Carolina. The article quoted Laura Gadd, a botantist with the department who has been featured on this blog before, and included information on the population numbers here in North Carolina.
The department’s Plant Industry Division works to protect the Venus flytrap population in North Carolina. Regular In the Field readers may remember a past article about seed collection and replanting efforts to try to help bolster the population in the wild.
Plant conservation staff members anticipate additional monitoring of Venus flytrap sites this year, and are already thinking ahead to 2012 when it will be time to do a more sweeping assessment of flytrap sites for a 10-year status report on flytrap populations in the state.
Check out the Smithsonian article on the Venus flytrap.