Botanical Illustrator



Dwarf Sundew


Dwarf Sundew (Drosera brevifolia), watercolor pencil & watercolor

About Dwarf Sundews:
Dwarf sundews are perennial carnivorous plants native to the United States. The leaves have tentacles containing glands which secrete sticky mucilage for trapping and digesting insects.  Mucilage is a polymer produced by most plants.  Once an insect is trapped, the tentacles bend toward other stalked glands to increase the insect's contact with the sticky substance. It takes about an hour for the mucilage to kill the trapped insect.

Sundews can live for fifty years.  The grow in the southeastern part of the United States (see distribution map).  They're very small, about 2 centimeters in diameter.

Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Plantae (plants)
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta (vascular plants)
Superdivision: Spermatophyta (seed plants)
Division: Magnoliophyta (flowering plants)
Class: Magnoliopsida (dictoyledons)
Subclass: Dilleniidae
Order: Nepenthales
Family: Droseraceae (sundew family)
Genus: Drosera (sundew)
Species: Drosera brevifolia

More information about dwarf sundews:
Carnivorous Plants of the Gulf Coast
Wikipedia: Drosera

Photos of sundews:

Sundew



Keywords related to art on this page: Dwarf sundew, sundews, carnivorous, botanical illustrator, coastal, native, wildflowers, wild, image, watercolor, plant illustrator, images, plants, picture, indigenous, native, species, botany, wildflower, botany, art