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Droserae or Sundews are probably one of the most alien looking yet beautiful carnivorous plant there is. Their leaves are coated in thousands of hairs and each of those hairs is topped with a blob of a sticky clear substance. To a fly these look like glistening balls of sweet nectar or thirst quenching water, so, the fly lands on the leaf and instantly is stuck by 10 or more hairs. On some plants the whole leaf will bend over the fly to get a firm grip! Then the fly struggles and gets more tangled up in the goopy substance. If the fly is lucky the sticky substance will suffocate it before the plant sends out digestive enzymes to dissolve the fly into a soup as to absorb the nutrients.

Here are a two animations that have obviously been time lapsed so you can see the movement clearly. But some droserae can curl around a fly in minutes!

©Images Copyrighted To Oxford Scientific Films/PBS

As you can see the hairs also bend towards the prey to make sure of it's meal not escaping!!

Now that the gorey bits are over we can concentrate on the beauty of these plants. There's nothing like seeing sun lighting up the 'dew' on a Sundew's leaf. There are many types of sundew which include: Rosetted Sundews, Temperate Sundews, Fork-Leafed Sundews, Tropical Sundews, Woolly Sundews, Pygmy Sundews (That can be smaller than a penny and be mature), Tuberous Sundews, Climbing Sundews and more..

[ D. madagascariensis]

Some species can be easy to grow and can live outside and survive freezing winters like the Cape Sundew (Drosera Capensis) whereas others need a much warmer environment like a Terrarium.

[Background Sundews Is D. nidiformis]