Drosera eneabba — Vorstman's Guide to the Carnivorous Plants

Drosera eneabba — the flower — **The flower** · Photo: Denis Barthel — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Identification

A perennial, fibrous-rooted pygmy sundew with a rosette no more than 2 cm across; with its flowering stem the plant reaches 8 cm. At its heart stands the cone of silvery stipules. The flowers are white to pink and appear in October and November. Leaf and flower measurements were not available in the accessible sources.

Similar species

Other white- or pink-flowered pygmy sundews grow on the same sandplains, such as Drosera closterostigma, which grows at the edges of wet depressions, and Drosera dichrosepala. The habitat on dry white silica sand and the late flowering help to distinguish it; certainty comes only from the features of stipules, calyx and stigmas under a lens.

The trap and how it works

An active flypaper trap. The small leaves bear stalked glands with droplets of glue in which springtails, ants and small flies are caught. The tentacles bend towards the prey and secrete digestive enzymes. On the extremely nutrient-poor white silica sand this by-catch is a real source of nitrogen and phosphorus.

Habitat and ecology

White silica sand (FloraBase), in the open kwongan heath of the northern sandplains (D1, B5). The sand holds little water; the plant grows in the wet winter and survives the summer as a resting bud of stipules.

Distribution and elevation

Endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. FloraBase lists the Geraldton Sandplains and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions, with records in the shires of Carnamah, Coorow, Dandaragan and Irwin, a band north of Perth to beyond Eneabba.

Recorded (quarter-degree cells)

Distribution based solely on records at GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), not on TDWG regions — those are often far larger than the actual range. The light halo is the area around a record, the dark core the record itself. The darker cells are 17 quarter-degree squares in which the species has actually been recorded, from GBIF and only from records accurate to within five kilometres. They show where it has been seen, not where it occurs: an empty square means nothing. For threatened species this layer never goes finer than a whole degree, deliberately.

Forms and variation

No subspecies or varieties have been described. Like all pygmy sundews the species also reproduces by gemmae, which form at the heart of the rosette in late autumn and are dispersed by raindrops.

Where and when to see it

October is the best month. The Eneabba district is a wildflower destination in spring, and on bare sandy patches among the flowering heath stand the small rosettes of this species. Search open white sand in sunshine around midday. Note that mineral sand mining takes place around Eneabba; do not enter mine sites.

Conservation status

Assessed as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List and listed as not threatened in Western Australia. Not in CITES. The white sands of this region have partly been mined for mineral sands and partly cleared for farming; remaining heath lies in reserves and along roads.

Scientific name

Drosera eneabba | Marchant & Lowrie, 1992

Described by N.G. Marchant & Lowrie in 1992, in Kew Bulletin, volume 47, no. 2, p. 322 — the same publication as D. echinoblastus. Near Eneabba, Western Australia; the species occurs around Eneabba and Badgingarra, on gravelly/sandy soils in heathland. Named directly after the Western Australian town of Eneabba, near where it was first discovered.

World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.