Tall Sundew
Season's Over
Hooker's Sundew
S1, Young Plant
| Tall Sundew Season's Over | | Hooker's Sundew S1, Young Plant | | ||
 | Class: | Plants (Plantae) - Land Plants (Charophyta) - Land Plants (Equisetopsida) | |||
| Order: | Betalains (Caryophyllales) | ||||
| Family: | Sundew (Droseraceae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Hooker's Sundew (Drosera hookeri) | ||||
| This Photo: | S8, Mature Plant | ||||
Thank you Dr Miguel de Salas for confirming and Ralph Foster & Thilo Krueger for helping with the id of this species for us EXTRA - Photo Specific Information: This photo was used by Miguel to confirm our identification of D. hookeri. Other photo's here may be of D. gunnianna General Species Information: Found in the Adelaide Hills and possibly elsewhere A small sundew with white flowers. It has basal leaves which are different shape to the stem leaves. At maturity it stands at under 100mm tall & 30mm wide. The flowers are ~10mm across. The leaves are a shield shape, which is diagnostic. It's easier to see their shape from the back. As with other sundews, the front of the leaf is covered with stems tipped in sticky sap that attracts insects. When one of these stems is moved by an insect the other stems move towards it to ensnare the insect, and then contract to the middle of the leaf to absorb the insect juices. Hooker's Sundew (Drosera hookeri) has recently been split into multiple species. It's possible that some of these photo's are Drosera gunniana, a new species with an old name. Miguel de Salas, who did the recent work on splitting out D. gunniana said "D. hookeri: top-branching, compound inflorescence with leaves and flowers, flower buds and fruit football-shaped with shorter, almost silky hairs." "I would expect a single stem, with perhaps a couple of simple, racemose inflorescences coming from the uppermost nodes, and a fuzzy-hairy, globular bud/fruit for D. gunniana." Further he said "... in Tasmania mixed populations of D. gunniana and D. hookeri are not uncommon. They have a slightly different habitat preference, but on grasslands and grassy woodlands it's not uncommon to find both. The fact that they often grow together and remain distinct is partly what prompted me to separate them." As our young plants (shown here) don't have enough diagnostic features, and it's possible D. gunniana and D. hookeri may be mixed, we have put the question mark on the id. Miguel did id one of our mature plants in this location, from photo's, to D. hookeri. We have labelled the photo's S1-8 (sightings 1-8), some of which are the same plants, but we didn't record which. | |||||
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