#droseraceae

A venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) amongst sphagnum moss in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, USA

Another species described by John Lindley in his 1839 work, A sketch of the vegetation of the Swan River Colony. That one comes up a lot when I'm researching Perth plants.

Drosera auriculata (syn. Drosera peltata ssp. auriculata)

18-SEP-2025

Pale rainbow sundew (Drosera pallida) in Perth, Australia

Droseraceae by Posingasme

Sam is a researcher at heart, a man of letters. He believes in that which he can study. On the other hand, it’s hard to be skeptical of the outrageous and supernatural when his big brother Dean is hunting a demon and his lover Castiel is a witch.

Also known as the Sundew family, family Droseraceae has three genera and about 162 different species. These three genera are Aldrovanda (waterwheel plants), Dionaea (Venus flytrap plants), and Drosera (the sundew plants from which the family gets its name).

Of these three genera, Drosera is the most basic from an evolutionary standpoint; Aldrovanda and Dionaea were (through the use of morphological research and molecular genetics) determined to be more advanced.

The Drosera genus makes up the bulk of the family, with 160 different species distributed all over the world. The name comes from the Greek word “droseros”, which means “dew-covered” and refers to the appearance of their leaves, which are covered in drops of that sticky mucilage which glistens in the sun like dewdrops.

The Dionaea genus has only the one species, Dionaea muscipula (the Venus flytrap). Charles Darwin himself once referred to it as “one of the most wonderful plants in the world”.

The genus Aldrovanda also contains only one species, Aldrovanda vesiculosa. (I’ll be doing a separate post detailing additional information about this plant soon, so stay tuned!)