Venus flytrap  (Dionaea muscipula)

There is an extremely large demand for carnivorous plants throughout the world, due to their fascinating features. The illegal collection of large numbers of Venus flytraps still occurs for export mainly to Europe; in 1993 it was estimated that around 500,000 plants were collected (2). The destruction of its habitat is another major threat to the survival of the Venus flytrap (2).

The Venus flytrap is listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which regulates international trade in wild plants of this species. In addition, it is protected by law in the United States where it is illegal to collect Venus flytraps from the wild (2). The recent success of tissue culture to allow the cultivation of a large number of plants is hoped to lesson the demand for wild-collected flytraps (2). A concerted effort is being made to conserve this fascinating plant, a species that Darwin himself called the 'most wonderful plant in the world' (2).