Reddish round leaves fringed with hairs tipped with glistening drops sit on wet sphagnum, and one leaf is folded over a fly
Round-leaved sundew, Drosera rotundifolia.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Round-leaved sundew
Native · flowers Jun–Aug · acid bogs, wet heath and moorland
Drosera rotundifolia — Droseraceae
A small carnivorous plant of acid bogs, wet heaths and moors, whose reddish rosette of round leaves is covered in glistening, sticky-tipped hairs. An insect that lands is glued fast, and the tentacles slowly fold over it while enzymes digest it. It thrives in nutrient-poor peat and sphagnum because the insects supply the nitrogen the soil lacks.
How to spot them
- ▸Flat rosette, a few centimetres across, of near-circular reddish leaves on long stalks, each leaf fringed with red hairs tipped with glistening droplets
- ▸Slender flower stalk up to about 20 cm bearing small white flowers, which open only in sunshine
- ▸Grows in wet sphagnum, on bare peat and on bog pool shores in heath, moorland and bog
- ▸Look-alike: oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia) has narrow, spoon-shaped leaves on curving stalks; great sundew (Drosera anglica) has long, narrow, erect leaves
- ▸Look-alike: common butterwort is also a sticky-leaved carnivore but has flat, yellow-green leaves without red hairs
How to know it
Tentacles tipped with glistening, sticky droplets detect an insect, curl inward to hold it, and digest it to supplement a poor soil
Round-leaved sundew's trapping mechanism, as described by the Wildlife Trusts.
In 1875 Darwin published experiments on this plant and its relatives in his book on insectivorous plants
Round-leaved sundew, genus Drosera.
Historically used in anti-ageing potions and love charms
Round-leaved sundew, per the Wildlife Trusts.
The genus name is derived from the Greek for 'dewy'
Drosera — round-leaved sundew.
Leaves that are rounder than those of a relative with narrow, oblong ones, marking it out as the commonest carnivore of British bogs
Round-leaved sundew versus oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia).
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Droseraceae; three species of sundew are native to Britain — round-leaved, oblong-leaved and great sundew
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers June to August, found on heathland, moorland and the shores of bog pools, common and up to 20 cm tall
- •Mechanism: sticky droplets on hair-like tentacles attract and trap insects, the tentacles curl inward to engulf the prey and enzymes digest it
- •Carnivory supplements nutrition in acidic, nutrient-poor habitats where nitrogen is scarce
- •Grows among sphagnum mosses; it is widespread on the bogs and wet heaths of the north and west and on some southern heaths
- •Darwin's Insectivorous Plants (1875) devoted its first chapters to sundews
- •Historically used in anti-ageing potions and love charms (Wildlife Trusts)
- •Drosera comes from the Greek droseros, 'dewy', for the droplets on the leaves
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Round-leaved sundew