Drosera intermedia

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Drosera intermedia
Drosera intermedia ne1.jpg
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
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.

Droseraceae 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. Representatives of the Droseraceae are found on all continents except Antarctica.

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

Drosophyllum is a genus of carnivorous plants containing the single species Drosophyllum lusitanicum. 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

Drosera capillaris, the pink or spathulate-leaved sundew, is a small carnivorous plant of the family Droseraceae in the genus Drosera. They are frequently found in wet pine flatwoods and bogs of the southeastern United States, ranging from eastern Texas east to Florida and north to Virginia, as well as in some areas of the Caribbean. They thrive in moist, acidic soil.

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

Drosera brevifolia, is a carnivorous plant of the family Droseraceae and is the smallest sundew species native to the United States. This species differs considerably from the pink sundew, Drosera capillaris, by its wedge-shaped leaves, and distinctly deeper red to reddish purple color, noticeable when side by side with D. capillaris.

<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 spatulata</i> Species of plant

Drosera spatulata, the spoon-leaved sundew, is a variable, rosette-forming sundew with spoon-shaped leaves. The specific epithet is Latin for "spatula shaped," a reference to the form of the leaves. This sundew has a large range and occurs naturally throughout Southeast Asia, southern China and Japan, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, eastern Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Variants are often known by the localities in which they are found. The plant does not form hibernacula in winter, and is easily grown using the same methods as Drosera capensis.

<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 peltata</i> Species of plant

Drosera peltata, commonly called the shield sundew or pale sundew, is a climbing or scrambling perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. Among the tuberous sundews, D. peltata has the largest distribution, which includes eastern and western Australia, New Zealand, India, and most of Southeast Asia including the Philippines. The specific epithet is Latin for "shield shaped", a reference to the shape of the cauline leaves. It is either a single extremely variable species, or a complex of several closely related species of uncertain taxonomic boundaries. In Australia at least four forms have had or still have specific taxonomic recognition: Drosera peltata subsp. peltata, D. peltata subsp. auriculata, D. foliosa and D. gracilis.

<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>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.

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

Drosera linearis, commonly called the slenderleaf sundew, is a sundew found in the Great Lakes region of North America, in Canada and the United States, such as Michigan, and in Montana. It is usually no more than four inches tall.

<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.

D. intermedia may refer to:

<i>Rhynchospora knieskernii</i> Species of grass-like plant

Rhynchospora knieskernii is a rare species of sedge known by the common name Knieskern's beaksedge. It is endemic to the state of New Jersey in the United States, where it occurs naturallyin the Pine Barrens. Reports have cited it present in Delaware as well, but these populations appear to have been introduced. It is threatened by the destruction and degradation of its habitat. It is a federally listed threatened species of the United States.

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.

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

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

<i>Drosera hookeri</i> Species of plant

Drosera hookeri, the grassland sundew is an shortly erect perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. Drosera hookeri is found in south-eastern Australia. Although the holotype was collected in Tasmania, its distribution also includes Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. This species has a complex taxonomic history, and its specific epithet acknowledges the original recognition of the taxon by Joseph Dalton Hooker. Hooker originally called his species Drosera foliosa Hook.f. ex Planch. in 1848, a name that was illegitimate as it had previously been used to describe a different species. The nomenclature of D. hookeri was later clarified and the taxonomic concept significantly broadened to include most of the south-eastern Australian and New Zealand forms of the species complex that includes Drosera peltata.

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. USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Drosera intermedia". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. 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