Threshold decision-making in the Venus flytrap

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) closes its trap only after two touches of its sensory hairs within approximately twenty seconds, reflecting a temporally gated threshold mechanism. Using a quantitative reinterpretation of published electrophysiological and mechanical measurements, this correspondence demonstrates that the bistable, memory-dependent closure of the Venus flytrap conforms to a multiplicative threshold framework (ARCH × Φ), in which four readiness domains, architecture (A), drive (D), context (C), and phase (Φ), jointly determine activation. The framework accounts for the two-trigger rule, refractory gating, and the all-or-none nature of trap closure, capturing the plant's energy-efficient bistability.