220 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



Order Droserace^ (the Sundew Family). 



Flowers regular, perfect. Sepals 5. Petals 5, very delicate. 

 Stamens 5. Carpels 2, 3, 5. Ovary 1-5-celled. Styles long; 

 stigmas simple or branched. Fruit a capsule. Flowers in 

 cymes. Herbaceous plants with a perennial rhizome. Insect- 

 devouring plants. Of the 

 six genera of this order, two 

 are found in South Africa. 



Drosera. — Delicate 

 herbs with a rosette of leaves 

 or a leafy stem ; covered 

 with curious " tentacles ; " 

 or stalks ending in swollen 

 purple heads which glisten 

 with a sticky fluid. Flies, 

 mistaking this for honey, are 

 caught fast. The tentacles 

 are so sensitive to even a 

 gentJe pressure that they 

 curve inward and smother 

 their hapless victim. A fluid 

 in the purple heads digests 

 the food containing nitrogen 

 in the insect's body. This 

 is used by the plant especially 

 in seed-making, although the 

 plants can live without insect 

 food. This is why sundews 

 can live in very poor soil 

 The genus is found in all 



Fig. 217. — Drosera cisti/lora. 



which will support nothing else 

 parts of the world. 



Roridula is a branched shrubby plant. The tentacles do 

 not curve over the victim, as in Drosera. 



