Dionaea muscipula scientific botanical plate

Hello everyone,

I'm quite rare on the blog these days I know. Actually, I spend much of my social media time on Facebook and Instagram and sometimes on Twitter. Go there if you can. ;-)

Today, I would like to show you my last botanical illustration: a scientific black and white botanical plate of the Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula. It is arguably one of the most iconic plants in the world and certainly the most iconic carnivorous plant. With this work, I had the ambition of proposing a comprehensive botanical plate for this species. Although, it is very well known and although there are already incredible artwork depicting this plant, I had yet to find a thorough plate like this one. I humbly hope that I somehow filled this gap with this work. In this post, you will find some explanation on the illustration. I cut the plate in 12 pieces like a grid and wrote some notes so that you can get an inside view of my creation process.

The original of this illustration (42 x 29,7 cm, pen and ink on 200 mg Canson paper) is SOLD but I am happy to announce the launch of the art prints on next Friday, March 12th at 3 pm, France time (UTC + 1) on my webshop (click)

The prints (made on 200mg quality paper) will be available at various sizes and prices as I want it to be accessible to everyone like I always do:

-Collector item: Limited Edition of 50 prints, signed and numbered with caption below the drawing, A3 size : 50 euros;

-Open edition without hand signature and caption: A3, A4 and A5 size at respectively 40/18/10 euros like all my previous prints.

Shipping worldwide. Post and packaging is 8,50 euros or 11 euros (with a tracking number). 5/7 euros in France.

The illustration explained inn 12 parts:

Part 1: Bottom right of the plate, bulb-like leaf base with long black roots (with whitish tips) and the two types of leaf base: short, larger winter leaf on the left and longer slender summer leaf on the right, both with venation.

Part 2 shows the end of a snapping sequence. I couldn’t obviously pretend to propose a thorough botanical piece showing this iconic (carnivorous) plant without including a trapping mechanism explanation. I added a handful of (different types of) arrows so that the viewer can more clearly understand what is happening here. The poor prey depicted here is the cosmopolitan fly, Musca domestica.

Part 3: Here is the inner side of a Dionaea muscipula trap showing various glands distribution, close ups of trigger hair and digestive glands (you will see the alluring glands in another part of the illustration). I really enjoyed the research part of this work and was delighted to learn quite a few things on our beloved Venus Flytrap.

Part 4: Of course I have included in the illustration a whole rosette with active leaves. The species is depicted here growing in a bed of live Sphagnum as it quite often occurs in the wild. If you look closely you will notice a juvenile grasshopper. According to one study (Williams, S, 1980 "How Venus' Flytraps catcher spiders and ants", Carnivorous Plant Newsletter 9: 65-78), this kind of insects represents 33% of the preys caught by the Flytrap in the wild, a percentage far more important than flies-a mere 4%.

Part 5: In this piece of our grid, you can see the rest of the rosette previously shown in part 4. You will easily distinguish a spider here in one of a trap. This group of arthropods, along with grasshoppers, actually constitutes Dionaea’s most frequent preys according to a study (33% as well). How is ‘Venus Spidertrap’ sounds to you as a vernacular name? Part 5 also reveals another piece of my snapping sequence, the arrow visible here showing the velocity at which the two lobes close. A careful inspection will also reveal the pale silhouette of a prey inside the closing trap. Can you see it? Lastly, the fragment of the illustration clearly shows a large piece of a leaf blade meaning that I have, unsurprisingly, included a large spectacular trap in my plate.

Part 6: This piece highlights the alluring glands as the famous carnivorous plant specialist Francis Ernest Lloyd used to call them. I was happy to insert this detail to my plate as I wanted to show and explain the carnivory of the Venus flytrap. In the upper part of the plate fragment, you can see the first step of the snapping sequence that you saw in the earlier pieces of the illustration. A housefly again, Musca domestica, is seen here inspecting the opened trap after it has been attracted by the said alluring glands.

Part 7: Obviously, I had to include a close up of the seed. Venus Flytrap’s are fairly typical being small, roughly pyriform, shiny and black. I really wanted to make them stand out on my plate by looking like some small pieces of shiny leather. I think I somehow managed it. Having spent hundreds hours many years ago drawings comic books characters clad in leather certainly helped.

When you look at the whole illustration, you can see that I tried to achieve a graceful and dynamic composition. On top of the mandatory scientific accuracy, I wanted the viewer to feel some kind of life, some kind of movement. After all, we all think of the Venus Flytrap as a mobile plant and one of the quickest on Earth on top of that! That’s why, in addition of the snapping sequence, I decided to add a germinating seed with roots escaping and breaking through the magnifying glass circumference. I do hope you like how these seed look like.

Part 8 shows seed pods and a half of a trap. The Venus Flytrap produces a long inflorescence up to 40 cm long. The white flowers are pollinated by various flying insects such as bees and beetles, some belonging to the Cerambycidae family. Unsurprisingly, with a species as striking as Dionaea muscipula I couldn’t help that to draw a leaf blade with a fierce looking trap as the primary element of the plate. I really enjoyed doing this piece of the illustration and I think it also helped me giving a good composition and some grace as well.

Part 9: This is the rest of the trap! You can notice here that on one of the lobes that form the trap, I have drawn partial venation as well as a strange stellate structure visible in the magnifying lens. This is actually a star shaped trichome-a hair- that can be found in the exterior of the two lobes and sometimes inside the trap of juvenile plants. I don’t think that many people are aware of this peculiar indumentum. I wanted the leaf blade and its trap to offer a striking sight to the viewer and at the same time I wanted to trigger curiosity so that she/he would be enticed to inspect all the other elements such as the trichome or the venation.

I had some serious reservations before I decided to draw the flying and starving Musca domestica because I didn’t wanted to distract the viewer too much from the botanical entity. It is a scientific botanical illustration and I want each element to bring knowledge and not be a mere decoration. At the end, I decided that the fly does bring some serious dynamic to the plate and, as an approaching prey, it was a perfect introduction for the 4 steps-snapping sequence where you can see the very same fly caught by the abruptly closing trap. In a certain way, I wanted this plate to be narrative: it tells a natural history. 

Part 10 shows a longitudinal section of the flower. I’m not sure I have drawn cut flower before. I really enjoyed the process and it is an important if not mandatory addition to the plate. Obviously, you can see here the androecium and gynoecium but also part of the calyx and corolla. Have you noticed the seed waiting in the chamber? If you like drawings and paintings of flower section, you should definitely check Carolyn Jenkins's work. She’s the best in that department.

Part 11: Focus on the flower. I have the feeling that I know this species intimately now. Understandable given the time required to draw to document myself and to draw the various elements.

Part 12 at last shows the end of the inflorescence : the cyme with its multiple white flowers.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Have a nice day dear readers!

François.