Drosera sessilifolia
Drosera sessilifolia
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Taxonomy
| Family: | Droseraceae |
|---|---|
| Genus: | Drosera |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
Overview
Drosera sessilifolia is a small South American sundew with a rosette of rounded, yellowish leaves and pink-lilac flowers. In the wild it is usually an annual that lives for a single rainy season.
Drosera sessilifolia forms a rosette of small, wedge-shaped to round carnivorous leaves. The leaves are usually yellowish and become redder with age. Plants are usually 1 to 2 cm across, and the largest wild rosettes recorded measured 4.5 cm.
The tiny flowers have pink-lilac or light lilac petals, and the sepals are often covered with short, stiff red hairs. The flower stalks are usually 5 to 8 cm tall and do not curve at the base, although one stalk 52 cm tall has been recorded.
It is very similar to its closest relative, Drosera burmannii, and the two make up section Thelocalyx. D. sessilifolia generally has rounder leaf blades and wider, shorter petioles, while D. burmannii has wedge-shaped, almost triangular leaves. Flower color does not separate them reliably, because some D. burmannii also have pink flowers. Both species have five styles that divide at the tip, unlike the other sundews of the Americas.
Geographic Information
Native Region: Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana
Climate Zones: Tropical, with a distinct wet and dry season
D. sessilifolia grows in sandy or gravelly soils in seasonal seepages, where a thin film of water covers the sand during the rainy season; at the edges of these seepages it also grows in drier sandy or gravelly soil. It has been recorded from about 150 m altitude in the Pantanal floodplain up to about 1,200 m at Chapada dos Veadeiros. In Brazil it is known from many states, from Minas Gerais and Goiás to the northeast coast, where it grows near the freshwater pools that form among sand dunes in the wet season. It lives where the wet and dry seasons are very distinct.
Physical Characteristics
Mature Size: Rosette usually 1-2 cm across (up to 4.5 cm); flower stalks usually 5-8 cm
Growth Rate: Fast
Trap Type: Flypaper Trap
Like other sundews, the leaves carry stalked glands whose sticky drops of mucilage attract and hold small insects. The glands then secrete enzymes that digest the prey, and the leaf absorbs the nutrients.
Care Guide
Light Requirements
Warm, bright light. Seedlings need bright conditions, and adult plants do well in a terrarium under grow lights.
Bright light all year daily
Water Requirements
Type: Rain water, distilled or reverse osmosis water
Method: Grow adult plants in small pots standing in a tray of pure water.
Frequency: Keep the tray from drying out; top up as needed
Humidity: Moderate to high
Soil
Grow it like other subtropical sundews: a peat and sand mix or sphagnum moss, with silica sand and no added fertilizer.
pH: Acidic (peat or sphagnum based)
Temperature
Summer: Warm; seed germinates best at 20-25°C (70-80°F)
Winter: Normal house temperatures; no cold rest
Feeding
Frequency: Regularly, especially while flowering
Feed plants regularly, especially when they flower, so they can recover from the loss of size that flowering can cause.
Propagation
Methods: Seed, sown like other subtropical sundews. It is not usually grown from leaf or root cuttings, because its leaves and roots are less robust than those of perennial sundews.
Difficulty: Moderate
Beginner Tips
Expect an annual: save seed every year so you always have the next generation. Keep it wet, warm and in bright light.
Troubleshooting
A plant that flowers, sets seed and dies is following its natural annual cycle. Collect and sow the seed, or cut the flower stalks early to keep a plant going.
Growing Tips
Keep it going by removing flowers Advanced
To keep a plant alive beyond one season, cut the flower stalks early and repot it about every three years. Otherwise, let it flower and sow the seed.
It is an annual in the wild General
In its native habitat D. sessilifolia usually grows as an annual: in one growing season it flowers, sets seed and dies when the soil dries out. The seed germinates with the next rainy season and needs warm, bright conditions to grow well.
Interesting Facts
In the wild it grows, flowers, sets seed and dies within one rainy season; the seed sprouts with the next rains.
In seepages its seed germinates under a film of water and algae, so seedlings are often seen still submerged.
It and Drosera burmannii are the only two species in section Thelocalyx.
A hybrid with D. burmannii was made in cultivation in 1994 and called D. x thelocalyxiana.
Seed sold as D. sessilifolia before 2009 was sometimes D. burmannii or a hybrid.
History
The French botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire discovered Drosera sessilifolia in western Minas Gerais, Brazil, near the São Francisco River, and described it in 1824. George Bentham described Drosera dentata from Guyana in 1842, and Ludwig Diels reduced it to a synonym of D. sessilifolia in his 1906 monograph of the Droseraceae. In 1996 the Brazilian botanist Fernando Rivadavia described finding it in the wild only after several trips, because the plants had already died back in the dry season.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
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