Sundew - Serial Killer, How Dew You Dew The Things You Dew?

Perhaps one of the most unique-looking plants, Drosera, or Sundew, is a cunning murderer of small insects and a beautiful one at that! Making its home in bogs, marshes or swamps, the ground is often highly acidic and void of nutrients, so the Sundew has adapted to find food of its own.


The idea behind this stunning little plant is a unique system of entrapment. By resembling dew, a prime water source for small insects and other animals, the Sundew manages to lure and trap its prey and then dissolves and ingests the creature almost entirely. Plants that consume animals are known as 'carnivorous plants'. What would what a vegetarian have to say about this!


One has to wonder how the plant evolved to take on the appearance of dew-soaked leaves. Without eyes or conscious thought, how is it possible that over thousands or millions of years, the plant just happened to develop a lethal system of entrapment that effectively mimics condensation on its leaves? The Sundews developed this mechanism of 'eating' to supplement their diet because the soils in which they live are typically very nutrient-poor. They are very efficient in supplementing their dietary intake and can often live for decades in these environments.


Sundews are found all over the globe and have evolved into several different types, but all have the same principle method of entrapping their prey. For the most part, they are small plants reaching several inches in size, but some have 'dew'-soaked leaves extending up to 10 feet! Leaves like these are capable of capturing large insects and even small rodents and birds!

The dew itself resembles nectar and serves to attract insects with its sweet, sticky sap. Once contact is made, the laminae (the little sticks supporting each 'dew' droplet) begin fusing to the prey and as it struggles, more and more sticky droplets ensnare the victim. The sundew is capable of movement as well, and once contact is made, the leaf will curl to expose its prey to as many droplets as possible and kill it quickly. This movement can take less than a second to occur and is controlled by 'hydraulics' - changes in water pressure within the tissue of the plant. Most victims die of exhaustion or suffocation, at which point the plant starts releasing digestive enzymes that dissolve the nutritious tissue. The plant feeds on this nitrogen-rich nutrient soup for days or weeks and continues trapping more prey.

Sundews produce tiny, white flowers to reproduce that are held high above the plant on tall stalks. This can help make the flowers of these short plants more visible to pollinators, and also keep pollinators away from the sticky trap below.  Aside from this, they can produce offsets (little clones that break off from the parent plant), stolons (modified roots that travel away from the parent and sprout new plants) or even grow new plants from leaves that touch the ground.

The Sundew is definitely an innovator in the plant world and there really isn't anything that compares to the uniqueness and capabilities of this tiny little serial killer.


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