Dionaea muscipula ‘Gremlin’

This is one mogwai you’ll want to give water and feed after midnight. Mo’ ‘Gremlin’ Venus flytraps, mo’ better.

Dionaea muscipula ‘Gremlin’ is a Venus flytrap cultivar sold primarily by California Carnivores. The origin of this plant is enigmatic and is a rare example of a carnivorous plant cultivar not named for color, size, or morphological mutation, but because of its growth habit. In 2009, Damon Collingsworth, co-owner of California Carnivores, noticed a clumping, green plant in an order of tissue-cultured Venus flytraps. The clone stood out to him, and he kept and propagated it. To his surprise, this new flytrap filled the pot within 6 months. He named it ‘Gremlin’ in the March 2013 edition of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, alluding to its “divisive” nature.

Tissue-cultured plants are not necessarily clones of the original material. Frequently, genetically sensitive treatment in vitro causes mutations in individuals coming out of it. Therefore, the result is not always a clone of the donor plant. It is unknown whether the original procedure used to produce Dionaea muscipula ‘Gremlin’ was seed-based in-vitro tissue-culture, or a meristem propagated from a single donor plant. Either scenario could have procured plants similar to ‘Gremlin’, owing to a sexually-derived, natural mutation in the case of seed tissue culture, or hormone-based mutation in the case of meristem propagation.

source: October 23^rd Carnivorous Plant Newsletter vol 42 #1 March 2013 Damon Collingsworth