Drosera graniticola

Drosera graniticola is a carnivorous plant in the genus of Sonnentaue (Drosera ) and was first described in 1982 by Neville Marchant.

Description

Drosera graniticola is a tender, erect, gray-green, hairless and up to 20 cm tall plant. It is partly red in old age and has solitary and paired catch leaves along the stem axis. In the flowering stage we formed on the paired catch leaves another sheet. In addition, the lower part of the stem axis is busy with some pfriemförmigen bracts. The upper part of the plant branches into one or two branches with individual or grouped sheets

The leaf blades are sickle-shaped, 2 mm long and 2 mm wide and outward. Longer tentacles glands are located along the slightly concave edge. Smaller tentacles glands inside. The leaf stalks are flattened round, 10 mm long and slightly tapering. The lateral petioles are, if any, 7 mm long.

Flowering period is from August to December. The grape-like inflorescence sits at the top of the plant and the side branches and consists of up to 10 white flowers on 5 to 10 mm long, glabrous pedicels. The sepals are green, broadly ovate - elliptic, 1.5 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. The upper edges and the tips are serrated irregular. The surface is dotted with tiny red-brown blotches and sometimes has some sessile glands. The rest is hairless. The petals are oblong, 5 mm long and 3 mm wide with slightly notched tips. The 5 stamens are 2 mm long, the stamens are white, the anthers white with numerous red points and the pollen is yellow. The ovary is green, black, spotted, top-shaped, 1 mm in diameter and 1 mm long. The three, rarely four pen are white at the base, pointed in the direction of pink, 1 mm long and approximately horizontal. On the upper half, they are divided into a few segments flattened round. The scars are white and are located at each pen segment.

The tuber is white, round and has a diameter of about 7 mm and is wrapped in a roughened, papery leaf sheath. It is located on a 15 cm long vertical runners. Like all so-called " Knollendrosera " it contracts during periods of high temperatures and relative drought in these tuber back and survived underground.

Distribution, habitat and status

The species is endemic to the area south-east of Hyden in the southwest of Australia. It grows there in pools, in and on granite outcrops on coarse-grained clay soils.

System

Drosera graniticola belongs to the subgenus Ergaleium, Section Ergaleium, so the climbing Knollendrosera.

Swell

• Allen Lowrie: Carnivorous Plants of Australia, Vol 1, Nedlands, 1987, p 24