SUNDEW

Venus's-flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) any plant of the family Droseraceae (order Nepenthales), which contains four genera (Aldrovanda, Dionaea, Drosera, and Drosophyllum) and about 100 annual and perennial species of flowering plants notable for their ability to trap insects. They are widely distributed in tropical and temperate regions. One of the best-known sundews is the Venus's-flytrap (q.v.). The name sundew is most commonly applied to members of the genus Drosera, which is distributed worldwide but most abundant in Australia, but the term sundew also applies to all Droseraceae. (See also Nepenthales.) An active trap of the sundew (Drosera capensis). Sensitive tentacles topped with red Drosera species, which occur for the most part in wet, boggy places with a sandy acid soil, are predominantly perennials. The small, nodding, five-petaled white or pinkish flowers are borne on one side of a curving stem, 10 to 25 cm (4 to 10 inches) tall, which rises from a rosette of basal leaves. The roundish, often reddish-stalked basal leaves, less than 2.5 cm in diameter, are covered with gland-tipped hairs that exude a sticky substance attractive to insects. Insects are captured by flexible tentacles (in reality stalked glands) on the upper surface of the leaf, and eventually become engulfed by a web of sticky tentacles (see photograph). After the trapped prey has been digested by enzymes secreted by the tentacles, the leaf reopens, resetting the trap. The most common North American sundew, D. rotundifolia, has small white or pinkish flowers 1.25 cm across or less. The round, flat leaf with purplish hairs narrows abruptly to a long fuzzy stalk. The fruit is spindle shaped.