What is Drosera?

Drosera is a genus in the Droseraceae family of carnivorous plants. Members of this family lure, capture and digest insects to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from their native soils. They are known as sundews because their glandular leaf hairs glisten like dew in the sun. Drosera cistiflora is a South African species that is technically not a bulb, but it is a species that dies back in the summer to thick wiry roots from which they return each year. Drosera macrantha is a tuberous climbing species that scrambles over surrounding vegetation. It grows from 40 to 120 cm. tall and has small cup-shaped golden green leaves in alternate whorls of three. Drosera menziesii is an erect tuberous species with undulating red leafy stems 10 to 30 cm long, circular sticky hairy leaves in groups of three and white, pink to reddish flowers up to 2.5 cm. across.