Australia: Kakadu NP – Drosera Brevornos Sundew
The soils are very poor at Kakadu National Park – lots of red clay subject to flooding which makes it very scarce in oxygen. But there are still wildflowers that are adapted to this – carnivorous endemic sundews. We saw many blowing sundews, most likely Drosera Brevornos. They are quite different from European sundews with a large round bed of leaves and quite big white and pink-to-purple flowers. Sundews in NT are well adapted to ultra hot temperatures and overload of sunlight and high humidity – they experience 6 months of dry dormancy and 6 months of wet growing season, supplementing pure nutrients from the soil with catching and devouring the little flies and other insects. The leaves of the sundews look like they have – well, dew! – and insects go for water, just to get stuck in gooey sticky liquid that is chemically quite similar to stomach juice. The leaf tentacles close and wrap around the prey, and suck out the nutrients, leaving out just the carcass in the end.
