Cape Sundew

Drosera capensis, the Cape sundew, is a perennial rosette-forming carnivorous herb in the flowering plant family Droseraceae, native to South Africa's Cape region, where it grows in permanently wet, nutrient-poor habitats. Its elongated, roughly oblong leaves are held semi-erect and covered in stalked glands that secrete sticky mucilage to attract, trap and digest arthropod prey, supplementing the nutrients it draws from the soil, and its leaves are dramatically mobile, curling around captured prey to prevent escape and aid digestion. First recorded in the late seventeenth century, it was one of five Drosera species included in the first edition of Carl Linnaeus's Species Plantarum, and it has since become one of the most widely grown sundews, cultivated in Europe as a curiosity since the mid-eighteenth century and studied as a potential source of pharmacologically interesting bioactive compounds; it was the first sundew to have its whole genome sequenced, and although often uncommon and localized in its native range, it has become naturalised and is listed as an invasive species in New Zealand.