In regards to the Staff Report Was the Venus flytrap brought to earth by a meteor?, what about the “simply appeared some time in our planet’s history” part of the question. Are there fossils, remains or other evidence of ancestors and/or now-extinct relatives of the Venus Flytraps and sundew plants?
Google, “fossil record sundews”.
http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq4780.html
- snerk *
Anyway…
More than you probably wanted to know here about fossilized sundew species. Geek alert. 
http://bestcarnivorousplants.com/aldrovanda/papers_online/Fossil.htm
And just this single mention, FWIW.
There is a superb discussion of the plant and its habits in a recent Scientific American:
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=00045544-C58D-1D5B-90FB809EC5880000&catID=3
In it, Lissa Leege of GSU describes not only the mechanism of carnivory, but the motivation for it.
This may help dispel any residual suspicion that these plants eat bugs here because they were used to doing it on their home planet.
Good question, Kat! The main wonder in my amateur mind is that since the Venus Flytrap is a native of the coastal bogs, in the midst of piney woods here in North Carolina; perhaps that condition of sedimentation would be less likely to yield a nice fossil. I dunno, but there’s a swell carnivorous plant botanist, recently retired from the NC Botanical Garden, in my neighborhood. Will try to find out.
“here in North Carolina”? Nirvana, eh?
I’m not sure I should introduce this geologic subject in an obviously botanical thread, but Doug’s comment that “despite any X-Files episodes to the contrary, neither of the Carolinas used to be a meteor crater,” seems to ignore the serious speculation about the Carolina Bays (click on the top image to see the first overhead view of the bays, which apparently touched off the controversy of their origin.) Not that anyone is sure that the bays were produced by an impact.
RM, you beat me to it. I had just come in to post about the Bays and reference this site, which has some really nice pictures in it and covers both sides of the debate.
I used to live about a half-mile from one of these (in Sumter, SC) and it was an obvious feature. The agent who sold us our house told us the meteor story. It had been partially filled in to build a strip mall and a few buildings had been built on the “bottom” but it was still recognizable. I have no idea what they really are but they definitely do exist!
Cool, tanstaafl, that was the first link that came up when I googled for the bays. It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in that article–it has that first overhead image of the bays also, but farther down in the page. Then, I thought, what does a special assistant to Jesse Helms know about geology? 
Anyone who worked for Jesse Helms should know about fossils!
[sub]sorry, sorry…[/sub]
Special assistant to Jesse Helms? I missed that part.
I tried to find a terraserver image of the area I lived in but they didn’t seem to have one for that area. Here’s a topo map of the area, though. Notice “Cypress Bay” near the center of the map as well as several other (unnamed) dashed blue ovals near the top and bottom of the map.