Venus Flytrap - Wally

A year or two ago I was sent two lovely "Wally" Venus flytraps from a very generous friend as a surprise.  I had no idea that this was being sent until I opened the package!  All the pictures below are of my Wally Venus Flytrap plants.

I grow a few different flytraps, some are named varieties, others are seed grown, some have upright growth, some always stay close to the ground, some produce clumps, some are colourful, and others are very green.  Plants grown side by side often look and perform differently as they have different genetics.

I'm not sure how many different venus flytrap clones are in Australia, out of all of the ones I have grown so far my favourite clone, and the easiest venus fly trap to grow, is this Wally Venus flytrap.  

Wally Venus Flytrap

Wally VFT

I made a blog post with pictures of the growth rate of Wally VFT over a year.  This is the most vigorous flytrap I have ever grown.

Wally has large traps, stays low to the ground, has great colour, is very vigorous, it either grows impressively large or clumps like crazy (I don't know how it decides which to do), and it survives some really harsh conditions that would kill many other varieties.  Wally is my fastest growing Venus flytrap, and it produces far more natural divisions each year than any of the other varieties that I grow.  

Being so hardy, and so impressive looking with incredible colour and very large traps, I think Wally would be a great Venus flytrap for beginners.

I wish I understood what makes it clump and what makes it grow into a large plant.  The two larger plants above produced the two clumps lower down in this page.

To give you a better understanding of Wally Venus Flytraps I figured I would cut and paste some descriptions from the breeder and a few other places.

Wally Venus Flytrap

Descriptions 

1) Description from Sam1greentmb (the breeder of this variety who has also developed more VFT cultivars than I have ever seen):

This is an incredibly beautiful cultivar which I grew some time ago. It came from the seeds of a "Big Mouth" Venus flytrap. The plant sometimes clusters into many plants, or it grows as a single plant and turns gigantic in size!

What does Wally have that many other Venus flytraps do not?
It always has red purple traps throughout the seasons, not just during cool weather. Wally also can give out the most amazing dark red purple traps when grown under artificial lighting. This colour is the most darkest red, intense red purple colour of any venus flytrap cultivar that I know!

Wally Venus Flytrap - my baby plant is growing well

2) Description from FlytrapStore:

If you like Big Mouth and Low Giant, you'll love Wally! Wally is very similar in neat growth habit, with its year-round ground-hugging big traps, but can impressively develop even more exceptional and eye-catching bright red coloration on its trap interiors. It reproduces more than most other Venus flytraps, producing baby Wally flytraps so you can have more Wallys! Not to mention, it's one of the hardiest Venus Flytraps we know of. Everything to like about this one - it has become one of our favorites since being able to acquire it.

Wally originates from Venus flytrap grower and breeder, Sam1greentmb. In his description, Wally distinguishes itself from other flytraps by its ability to get very large or clump a lot and because it has red-purple traps throughout all seasons (provided it gets good sunlight), not just in cool weather. And it gets the deepest purpled-colored traps Sam has ever seen.  'Purple Ambush' is the most colorful Venus flytrap we've ever seen.

Wally vft clumping - divided into 2 very large plants and 12 smaller plants

Another Wally VFT clumping over winter

 3) Description of Wally VFT from https://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/wally-has-arrived-t16844-15.html 

Some of the features Wally has that I think are catching are its low to the ground growth and it seems to hold its coloration even in the hot hot parts of the summer while most of the rest of my VFTs lose lots of their color and it tends to be a clumper.

Wally won't get deep purple traps without strong light but does get deep red traps without strong light. In that way it colors up very easily. Even my Wallys from Matt, have a lot of color on them for plants not too long out of TC and not in one of my sunnier spots in my yard either.

Wally gets about as big as a Big Mouth, which was its parent plant. But it has even shorter leaves than Big Mouth does and can get even more purplish in its traps than Big Mouth too. I've seen my Wallys red all over with purple traps before. It almost can be called a red clone. 

It also tends to multiply like crazy. One large plant can make 15 or more natural divisions a year easily. Keep in mind this is strictly from natural division, unaffected by TC at all. Who knows what the TCed ones will do. Wally also is a pretty fast grower and I have found can grow at a good pace in cooler temperatures as well just like B52 can, unlike all other clones that I know. For example, Wally can put on decent growth even in the high 60s (16-21C) and overcast.

IMO, there's not much point in buying a Big Mouth if you can get a Wally instead. Wally has more pronounced features of all the features that Big Mouth has that has made it popular. It's like a super Big Mouth.

Wally has darker color, not just that it tans darker and easier as well but the green non-tanned color is a darker hue of green as well. Wally grows faster than Big Mouth too. The deep purple tan it gets in its traps is darker than the purple tan that Big Mouth gets. When I saw my Wallys tan really dark the whole plant was red. There may have been some dark green in a few tiny spots not well exposed to the sun but the plant was basically 95% red or purple. I've never seen my Big Mouths do that though I have seen them mostly red and purple all over before too.

There is not much more I can add to these descriptions, these people have grown far more venus flytrap varieties than I have even seen, so they really know their stuff.

I plan to divide more of my Wally venus flytraps in spring.  If you are a carnivorous plant collector and would like to swap some plants please let me know as I have divided my plants and should have a few extra plants late spring/early summer.  My contact details can be found on my for sale page where I sell other carnivorous plants and perennial vegetables and things. 

Wally Venus Flytrap colouring up nicely