Drosera caduca
Encyclopedia
Drosera caduca is a perennial
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

 in the genus Drosera that is endemic to Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. Its leaves are arranged in a rosette
Rosette (botany)
In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves, with all the leaves at a single height.Though rosettes usually sit near the soil, their structure is an example of a modified stem.-Function:...

 with one or more rosettes emerging from the root stock. It produces white flowers from December to July. Drosera caduca grows in white sandy soils on creek margins from the Edkins Range to the southern part of the Prince Regent Nature Reserve
Prince Regent Nature Reserve
Prince Regent Nature Reserve is a protected area in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In 1978 the area was nominated as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.-Description:...

 and also on Augustus Island
Augustus Island (Western Australia)
Augustus Island is an island off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia.The island is in length and has a maximum width of with a total area of and has an irregular shape...

. It was first described by Allen Lowrie
Allen Lowrie
Allen Lowrie is a West Australian botanist. He is living in Duncraig, a Perth suburb, is married and has two daughters.Lowrie, originally a businessman and inventor, got in contact with the carnivorous flora of western Australia in the late sixties and worked on it as an amateur...

 in 1996; the type specimen was collected from August Island on 27 May 1993. The specific epithet caduca comes from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 caducus meaning dropping off early, in reference to the absence of the insect-trapping trichomes on all but the juvenile leaves. This plant is unique in the genus by its lack of the sticky traps on the mature adult leaves.

See also

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