Drosera intermedia

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Drosera intermedia
Drosera intermedia ne1.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Droseraceae
Genus: Drosera
Subgenus: Drosera subg. Drosera
Section: Drosera sect. Drosera
Species:
D. intermedia
Binomial name
Drosera intermedia
Hayne, 1800
Drosera intermedia dist.png
Distribution map

Drosera intermedia, commonly known as the oblong-leaved sundew, [1] spoonleaf sundew, [2] or spatulate leaved sundew, is an insectivorous plant species belonging to the sundew genus. It is a temperate or tropical species native to Europe, southeastern Canada, the eastern half of the United States, Cuba, Hispaniola, and northern South America. [3]

Contents

Description

Drosera intermedia is a perennial herb which forms a semi-erect stemless rosette of spatulate leaves up to 10 cm tall. Plants in temperate regions undergo dormancy during which they form a winter resting bud called a hibernaculum.

As is typical for sundews, the leaf blades are densely covered with stalked mucilaginous glands which secrete a sugary nectar to attract insects. These then become ensnared by the mucilage and, unless they are strong enough to escape, are suffocated or die from exhaustion. The plant then secretes digestive enzymes from sessile glands and later absorbs the resulting nutrient solution to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the plants natural environment.

Drosera intermedia blooms from June through August, forming up to 15 cm. tall inflorescences bearing 3–8 white flowers. Fertilized ovaries swell to form egg-shaped dehiscent seed capsules which bear numerous tiny seeds.

Distribution and habitat

Drosera intermedia is one of the most widely distributed species in the genus, and one of only three Drosera species native to Europe (the others are D. rotundifolia and D. anglica ). It is also found in eastern North America, Cuba, and northern South America. The Cuban and South American forms are tropical and do not form hibernacula in the winter.

Drosera intermedia grows in sunny, but constantly moist habitats including bogs, fens, [4] wet sandy shorelines [5] and wet meadows. Since it is carnivorous, it is able to occupy relatively infertile habitats including wet sand and peat. It is a relatively weak competitor, and so is excluded from more fertile sites by competition from canopy-forming perennials. [6] It can survive high water periods as buried seeds, and then re-establish when water levels fall. [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>Drosera</i> Genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Droseraceae

Drosera, which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow. Various species, which vary greatly in size and form, are native to every continent except Antarctica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droseraceae</span> Family of carnivorous flowering plants

Droseraceae is a family of carnivorous flowering plants, also known as the sundew family. It consists of approximately 180 species in three extant genera, the vast majority being in the sundew genus Drosera. The family also contains the well-known Venus flytrap and the more obscure waterwheel plant, both of which are the only living species of their respective genera. Representatives of the Droseraceae are found on all continents except Antarctica.

<i>Cladium</i> Genus of grass-like plants

Cladium is a genus of large sedges, with a nearly worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate regions. These are plants characterized by long, narrow (grass-like) leaves having sharp, often serrated (sawtooth-like) margins, and flowering stems 1–3 m tall bearing a much-branched inflorescence. Like many plants found in wet habitats, it has deeply buried rhizomes that can produce tall shoots with dense canopies.

<i>Drosophyllum</i> Genus of carnivorous plants

Drosophyllum is a genus of carnivorous plants containing the single species Drosophyllum lusitanicum, commonly known as Portuguese sundew or dewy pine. In appearance, it is similar to the related genus Drosera, and to the much more distantly related Byblis.

<i>Drosera capillaris</i> Species of carnivorous plant native to subtropical to tropical North and South America

Drosera capillaris, also known as the pink sundew, is a species of carnivorous plant belonging to the family Droseraceae. It is native to the southern United States, the Greater Antilles, western and southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. It is listed as vulnerable in the US state of Virginia, and critically imperiled in Arkansas, Maryland, and Tennessee.

<i>Drosera capensis</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera capensis, commonly known as the Cape sundew, is a small rosette-forming carnivorous species of perennial sundew native to the Cape in South Africa. Because of its size, easy-to-grow nature, and the copious amounts of seed it produces, it has become one of the most common sundews in cultivation, and thus, one of the most frequently introduced and naturalised invasive Drosera species.

<i>Drosera rotundifolia</i> Species of flowering plant in the sundew family Droseraceae

Drosera rotundifolia, the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribution, being found in all of northern Europe, much of Siberia, large parts of northern North America, Korea and Japan but is also found as far south as California, Mississippi and Alabama in the United States of America and in New Guinea.

<i>Drosera regia</i> Species of carnivorous plant in the family Droseraceaea endemic to a single valley in South Africa

Drosera regia, commonly known as the king sundew, is a carnivorous plant in the sundew genus Drosera that is endemic to a single valley in South Africa. The genus name Drosera comes from the Greek word droseros, meaning "dew-covered". The specific epithet regia is derived from the Latin for "royal", a reference to the "striking appearance" of the species. Individual leaves can reach 70 cm (28 in) in length. It has many unusual relict characteristics not found in most other Drosera species, including woody rhizomes, operculate pollen, and the lack of circinate vernation in scape growth. All of these factors, combined with molecular data from phylogenetic analysis, contribute to the evidence that D. regia possesses some of the most ancient characteristics within the genus. Some of these are shared with the related Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), which suggests a close evolutionary relationship.

<i>Drosera anglica</i> Species of carnivorous flowering plant in the family Droseraceae

Drosera anglica, commonly known as the English sundew or great sundew, is a carnivorous flowering plant species belonging to the sundew family Droseraceae. It is a temperate species with a circumboreal range, although it does occur as far south as Japan, southern Europe, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii, where it grows as a tropical sundew. It is thought to originate from an amphidiploid hybrid of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis, meaning that a sterile hybrid between these two species doubled its chromosomes to produce fertile progeny which stabilized into the current D. anglica.

<i>Drosera madagascariensis</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera madagascariensis is a carnivorous plant of the sundew genus (Drosera). It was described in 1824 by A. P. de Candolle and is native to Africa.

<i>Carex lasiocarpa</i> Species of grass-like plant

Carex lasiocarpa is a broadly distributed species of wetland sedge sometimes known as woollyfruit sedge or slender sedge. It is considered a species of Least Concern by the IUCN Red List due to its extensive range with many stable populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnivorous plant</span> Plants that consume animals

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds. They still generate all of their energy from photosynthesis. They have adapted to grow in waterlogged sunny places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875, Charles Darwin published Insectivorous Plants, the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of painstaking research.

<i>Drosera monticola</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera monticola is a perennial carnivorous plant species in the genus Drosera, the sundews. This species is endemic to a single mountain range in Western Australia.

<i>Drosera uniflora</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera uniflora is a species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera that is native to southern Chile, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands. It is a tiny sundew with a solitary white flower as its name would suggest. Stalked glands on its leaves, which secrete sticky mucilage at the tips, are used to capture and hold insect prey, from which the plant derives the nutrients it cannot obtain in sufficient quantity from the soil. It was formally described in 1809 by botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow.

<i>Drosera falconeri</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera falconeri is a carnivorous plant in the family of Droseraceae. It is endemic to the Northern Territory of Australia.

D. intermedia may refer to:

<i>Pinguicula</i> Genus of flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae

Pinguicula, commonly known as butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. They use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 13 are native to Europe, 9 to North America, and some to northern Asia. The largest number of species is in South and Central America.

Drosera viridis is a semi-erect or rosetted perennial species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. It is known only from Brazil, being found in eastern Paraná and São Paulo and central Santa Catarina at elevations from 550–1,100 m (1,800–3,610 ft). It may, however, also be found in adjacent Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It typically grows in waterlogged habitats among grasses in white-clayey, reddish lateritic, or humus-rich black-brown soils and is sometimes found submerged with only the leaves above water.

Drosera peruensis is a carnivorous plant of the genus Drosera, commonly known as the Peruvian sundew. This Drosera species was first identified in Peru in 2002 by Tânia Regina dos Santos Silva and Mireya D. Correa following work to update the genus Drosera for the reference text, Flora Neotropica..

<i>Drosera kaieteurensis</i> Species of carnivorous plant

Drosera kaieteurensis is a plant from the sundew family (Droseraceae).

References

  1. BSBI List 2007 (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  2. NRCS. "Drosera intermedia". PLANTS Database. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  3. "Search". www.gbif.org. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
  4. Godwin, K. S., Shallenberger, J., Leopold, D. J., and Bedford, B. L. 2002. Linking landscape properties to local hydrogeologic gradients and plant species occurrence in New York fens: a hydrogeologic setting (HGS) framework. Wetlands 22:722–37.
  5. Keddy, P.A. 1981. Vegetation with Atlantic coastal plain affinities in Axe Lake, near Georgian Bay, Ontario. Canadian Field-Naturalist 95: 241–248.
  6. Wilson, S. D. and P.A. Keddy. 1986. Species competitive ability and position along a natural stress/disturbance gradient. Ecology 67:1236–1242.
  7. Keddy, P.A. and A. A. Reznicek. 1982. The role of seed banks in the persistence of Ontario's coastal plain flora. American Journal of Botany 69:13–22.

Further reading