Botany Photo of the Day

Thank you once again to UnclePedro@Flickr from Perth, Australia, for contributing an image to BPotD (original | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Appreciated once again!

Drosera menziesii, or pink rainbow (Flora of Western Australia has photos of the pink flowers), is native to Western Australia, primarily in winter-wet areas and swamps. It is named after the Scottish naturalist Archibald Menzies. It is likely that Menzies collected the species during the Vancouver Expedition's brief stay in Western Australia, but I haven't been able to confirm.

All members of the sundew family are insectivorous. Of the three genera in the family, Drosera, Dionaea and Aldrovanda, one hundred and fifteen species are recognized. Of these, one hundred and ten species belong to the genus Drosera. One-third of these 110 species can be found in the biodiverse Western Australia, though the genus can be found on all continents except Antarctica.

Modified leaves bearing stalked mucilaginous glands entrap insects and secrete digestive enzymes. In most Drosera species, sessile glands on the leaf surface absorb the nutrients from the externally-digested insect, providing the plant with the nutrition it is often not able to retrieve from the poor soils it can often be found growing in. Please refer to the section on leaves and carnivory in the Wikipedia article on Drosera.