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My child was working on a school exercise today that referenced Venus fly traps, i.e., a specific group of plants that attract and ‘eat’ insects.

My child is also interested in ancient myths, and they asked why the plant was named after the goddess Venus.

I speculated that the mouth of the plant looks like a oyster/mollusk shell, and Venus is sometimes portrayed with such a shell in classical artwork.

When I tried to research this question online, however, I didn’t find any authoritative-seeming websites. Those that I did find suggested that the plant was so named because it looks like (typical) women’s genitalia, and Venus is the Roman goddess of sexuality.

There were further suggestions that sounded downright misogynistic.

What is the actual etymology / history of the name ‘Venus fly trap,’ and can you cite an authoritative source?

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The Venus flytrap gets the "Venus" part of its name because its flowers are really pretty (like the goddess Venus) and are white, like the planet Venus in the sky. The plant is not from Venus. The "Flytrap" part comes from its obvious bug-eating attributes.

This is, however...what shall I call it? A "comfortable fallacy." You often see this story maintained in books about carnivorous plants, but this is because of an article that John Ellis wrote in 1768. This is what you would call a cover story: "...and from the beautiful Appearance of its Milk-white Flowers, and the Elegance of its Leaves, thought it well deserved one of the Names of the Goddess of Beauty, and therefore called it Dionaea."

All of that is well and good, but pretty much a fairy story.

It appears that the 'Venus' part comes from a glossing-over of the original and more earthy comments of the researchers of the time. Apparently they were trying to make it 'politically correct' in the terms of the mores of the times...

The true reason that Venus is part of this plant's name due to the dirty minds of the kooky naturalists and nuserymen (such as John & William Bartram, Peter Collinson, William Darlington, Arthur Dobbs, John Ellis, and Daniel Solander). When they looked at the plant, they saw in its amazing behavior and attractive form (two red, glistening lobes, surrounded by hairs, sensitive to the touch), something that reminded them of female genitalia of their own species. Indeed!

[emphasis and links my addition]

saracenia.com


Further observations:

The Venus flytrap, however, closed its leaves for an obvious reason–to capture and devour insects. Here was a brand new kind of entity: an actively carnivorous plant. Ellis enclosed a picture of the Venus flytrap, which he called Dionaea muscipula, with his letter, showing a living specimen, with a caterpillar and a moth in the throes of being digested; in a caption, he described the leafy snare as a “Rat trap with teeth.” So that the rest of the world could appreciate the Venus flytrap, Ellis published his letter the next year in a pamphlet called Directions for Bringing over Seeds and Plants from the East Indies and Other Distant Countries (1770). It includes a colored engraving of Dionaea muscipula

-John Ellis


footnotes

Phil Sweet contributed at least half of the very interesting information attached to this post. This is a fascinating topic and deserves more and constant updates...

Links often rot, and the more we can add to this answer the better it will be.

An incredible wealth of information on the topic

This is a community wiki, so if you have good info feel free to contribute...

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    Additional reference, still working on finding a copy of the species description that was submitted and a copy of Ellis's letter to Linnaeus. John Ellis
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 0:37
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    The only other sensitive plant known at the time was Mimosa pudica - so named by Linnaeus himself. So let's add his name to list of miscreants.
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 0:44
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    The letter to Linnaeus is apparently reproduced here - huntbotanical.org/admin/uploads/hibd-ellis-seeds.pdf
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 1:20
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    see etymology section here - gbif.org/species/144097442
    – Phil Sweet
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 1:20
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    I appreciate the collective effort on this answer. Let me know when it’s done. :-)
    – EJ Mak
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 19:11

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