>about a year, and so far, no major problems. 1 is very healthy with quarter
>sized traps (open). The 2nd used to be this way, but 3 months ago, all the
>large traps started dying. It came back to life shortly thereafter, but the
>traps are 1/8" to 1/4" across (open) and do not respont to the trigger hairs
>being stimulated.... After a couple days of being open, they start to open
>further until they are practically inside out. It is also VERY bushy with
>probably 40-50 leaves/traps as opposed to the 6-8 the healthy other plant
>has at any one time. They are both in sterile peat and are watered with
Two possibilities came up to me:
1: your plant is infected with a virus
2: your plant has spontaneously doubled his chromosome number
I think the first possibility is more likely because your plant was at first
dying back, and because a spontaneous doubling of the chromosome-number is
quite rare, but can be induced by cytotoxic chemicals (e.g. colchicine)
If you have contacts with a laboratory, you can do a chromosome count to
prove/reject the second possibility.
Remember that viral diseases can also cause strange growth: in the 17th
centurie, tulips with a viral disease were very popular in The Netherlands
because of their attractive 'flamed' flowers (although they didn't knew yet
that this was caused by a virus, these were discovered app. 300 years later).
Martin Zevenbergen
Dept. of Plant taxonomy
Agricultural University
P.O. box 8010
6700 ED Wageningen
The Netherlands
martin.zevenbergen@algem.pt.wau.nl