Bergen Water Gardens is proud to offer carnivorous plants which are produced exclusively by artificial and natural propagation. Our carnivorous plants are never collected from the wild! The vast majority of our plants come tissue culture  Recently we had the pleasure of visiting AG3 in Eustis, Florida. At AG3, hundreds of varieties of plants are produced, grown and offered as tissue culture liners.

What is tissue culture? Tissue culture is the growing of tissue or cells, separate from the main organism. With regards to plants, cells are collected from roots, stems or leaves. Under sterile conditions, they are placed in a specific growth media. With ample light and heat, the cells grow producing a new plant-lets. As they grow, the plants are divided and more plants will be produced. Finally, the plants are harvested from their bottles and planted in a greenhouse to adjust to life outside the lab. After several months, the new plants can be shipped to greenhouses worldwide to be replanted and grown to a proper size to sell.

Plants which are grown from tissue culture are plants which are direct copies of their parents. This is an ideal way to mass produce plants which are rare or endangered, such as carnivorous plants. This is also the ideal way to produce plants which have a particular trait or characteristic which resulted from hybridization. This new hybrid, once placed in tissue culture, will now produce many thousands of identical progeny.

Look at the stages of development of your favorite carnivorous plants:

The Tissue Culture Lab:

Bottles ready to be planted or sold

In the Greenhouse:

Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula ‘Akai Ryu’ (Red Dragon)

Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula ‘Cup Trap’

Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula ‘Dente’

Venus Fly Trap, Dionaea muscipula ‘King Henry’

Sundew, Drosera spathulata

Sundew, Drosera spathulata ‘Fraser Island Form’

Nepenthes sanguinea

Nepenthes ventriosa – tropical, red pitcher

Butterwort/Ping, Pinguicula primuliflora

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia ‘Bug Bat

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia ‘Fat Chance’

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia x ‘Dana’s Delight’

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia x ‘Scarlet Belle’

Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia ‘Carolina Yellow Jacket’