The Venus flytrap grows wild in exactly one place on Earth, and they're being poached.
The entire global wild population lives in a roughly 75-mile radius around Wilmington, North Carolina.
The soil there is so nutrient-poor that these plants evolved to snap shut and digest insects just to survive.
It took millions of years to perfect that trap… and you can buy one at Lowe’s for $7. But here’s the darker part:
Poachers sneak into the bogs at night and rip thousands of them out of the ground. Some end up in the houseplant trade. Others get smuggled overseas.
North Carolina made it a felony in 2014, but people still do it anyway.
The most famous carnivorous plant in the world is being stolen into extinction from the only home it’s ever known.
What you can actually do:
1. Never buy wild-collected Venus flytraps (ask for “nursery-grown” or tissue-cultured)
2. Support habitat protection efforts in coastal North Carolina
3. Talk about it: most people have no idea how rare they really are in the wild
That little $7 plant in a plastic pot has a wild story most of us never knew.
The bumblebee queens are alone right now, but not for long.
She emerged from hibernation around March or April, fed on dandelions and willow, and is now searching for a nest site.
Old rodent burrows, hollow trees, and even compost heaps can all be called home.
Once she finds one, she lays eggs and feeds the larvae herself until the first workers emerge in 4 to 6 weeks.
That single queen will produce 50 to 400 workers by midsummer. The colony you watch in your bee balm in July is built entirely on her surviving this next month.
What helps her right now: early spring flowers left blooming, undisturbed leaf piles in corners, brush piles, no pesticide spraying.
What hurts her: tilling soil, mowing leaf litter, leaf blowers, lawn treatments, really anything that disturbs ground cavities.
She's out there, by herself, looking. The next colony depends on her finding what she needs.
Very Important Message!!
Do NOT, and I repeat do not buy plants treated with Neonicotinoids. Bees take the pollen back to the hive and feed it to the brood.
This is a number one cause of the colony collapse. It's important to NOT buy these plants!
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we live on a planet where trees warn each other of danger through underground networks. where octopuses dream. where elephants return to the bones of their dead and stand over them in silence. where bees communicate through dance, showing each other where to fly. where flowers bloom...where crows remember human faces -especially those who were cruel to them - and pass that memory on to their young. where ants build entire cities. where cats purr at a frequency that can help heal bones. where forests, after fires, grow flowers first.
I've been saying this for years. The reason public art is so ugly now is it's meant to erode your pride in your community and culture so those in power can reshape it with minimal resistance.