Dione, mother of Aphrodite in Greek mythology.
Low-growing carnivorous perennial herb. Leaves in a basal rosette, spoon-shaped, to about 12 cm long but generally shorter, the stalk winged and the blade often reddish if exposed, consisting of 2 hinged lobes, the margins fringed with pointed teeth that mostly face inwards to form a sealed area when the leaves close after stimulation of 1 or more of the 3 long, sensitive hairs on the upper surface of each lobe. Flowers 3-10 together in stalked clusters, white veined green, about 2 cm wide on stalks that may be over 30 cm tall. Sepals and petals 5, stamens mostly 15. Fruit a capsule with many seeds.
D. muscipula Ellis is the unmistakable Venus' Fly Trap, sold for its remarkable trapping leaves with lobes that close (by hydraulic action) on stimulation of the surface hairs by an insect or other prey which is then crushed and digested by enzymes that are secreted from red dot-like surface glands.
Requires humidity and generally grown in wet sphagnum, becoming semi-dormant in winter.
Seed, division, leaf stalk cuttings. Most parts of the plant produce adventitious buds.
1 species from SE North America in damp, mossy situations of the Pine Barrens region.
Source: (1997). Droseraceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
