Drosera aliciae and white-legged meal

    Drosera aliciae and white-legged meal
    Author: Ivan Lätti
    Photographer: Louis Jordaan

    Drosera aliciae also grows in the Little Karoo in places where the moisture is sufficient.

    The rosette comprises prostrate leaves about 20 mm long and 7 mm wide near their tips, where they are widest. The rosette in picture has little green to its leaves and much red in the straight hairs serving as stalks for the spherical glandular globules.

    Droseras have stalked, mucilaginous glands that secrete the sweet mucilage that first attracts insects, secondly ensnares them and thirdly digests them, using enzymes. Some of these carnivorous plants also have sessile glands that absorb the resulting nutrient soup obtained from the digested insects.

    Drosera is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants on earth, comprising about 194 species (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; Wikipedia).

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