Dicotyledons with Polypetalous Flowers . 
4i 
Natural Order 
DROSERACEAL Tab. 33. 
Diagnosis.— Low herbs, usually with glandular radical leaves. Flowers 
regular. Stamens hypogynous or nearly so, usually 5. Ovary free, with 
parietal placentas. Fruit a capsule. 
Distribution. —A small, but almost cosmopolitan Natural Order. Of the principal genus, Sundew 
( Drosera ), a number of species are peculiar to Australia and Cape of Good Hope. They affect either 
boggy or sandy localities. 
One British Genus ; Species, 3. 
Leaves of Sundew covered with scattered stalked glands which exhibit tardy irritability when a crumb of some 
foreign substance is placed upon them; in Venus’ Fly-trap (Dioncea muscipuld), peculiar to the Southern United 
States, the blade of the leaf is 2-lobed, each lobe bearing a fringe of bristles and 3 minute bristles on the disk; the 
latter are remarkably sensitive to mechanical irritation, and when touched cause the instantaneous folding of the 
lobes of the blade. 
Flowers very fugacious. 
USES, &c.—The Order is of no economic importance. A few Australian species of Sundew and the Venus’ 
Flytrap are occasionally cultivated in greenhouses. 
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