''Drosera burmanni'', the tropical sundew,
[Erickson, Rica. 1968. ''Plants of Prey in Australia''. Lamb Paterson Pty. Ltd.: Osborne Park, Western Australia.] is a small, compact species in the
carnivorous plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans
Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryot ...
genus ''
Drosera
''Drosera'', which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genus, genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. 2 volumes. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucil ...
''. Its natural geographical range includes the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Australia, India, Japan, southeast Asia, Oceania, Africa and China's Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, Fujian, Taiwan.
It normally spans only in diameter. It is one of the fastest trapping sundews as well, and its leaves can curl around an insect in only a few seconds, compared to the minutes or hours it takes other sundews to surround their prey. In nature, ''D. burmanni'' is an
annual
Annual may refer to:
* Annual publication, periodical publications appearing regularly once per year
**Yearbook
** Literary annual
* Annual plant
* Annual report
* Annual giving
* Annual, Morocco, a settlement in northeastern Morocco
* Annuals (b ...
, but in cultivation, when grown indoors during the cold months, it can live for many years. Since ''D. burmanni'' is an annual, it produces large amounts of seed.
''Drosera burmanni'' has been considered a powerful
rubefacient
A rubefacient is a substance for topical application that produces redness of the skin, e.g. by causing dilation of the capillaries and an increase in blood circulation. They have sometimes been used to relieve acute or chronic pain, but there is l ...
in
Ayurveda
Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population repo ...
.
[Lewis, Walter H., 1977 ''Medical Botany - Plants Affecting Man's Health''. John Wiley & Sons, St. Louis, Missouri.]
''Drosera burmanni'' is an herb that produces very short stems and leaves in a
rosette. Each wedge-shaped leaf is typically 8–10 mm long and 5–6 mm wide. White flowers are produced in groups of 3 to 10 on tall
racemose
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
s, of which there can be one to three per plant.
[Marchant, N. G., and George, A. S. 1982. Droseraceae. ''Flora of Australia'', Vol. 8. pp. 9-64.]
The first brief description of the species was written by
Paul Hermann and published after Hermann's death by
William Sherard
William Sherard (27 February 1659 – 11 August 1728) was an English botanist. Next to John Ray, he was considered to be one of the outstanding English botanists of his day.
Life
He is still a little-known figure of that era coming as he did from ...
in ''Musaeum Zeylanicum''. It was described in more detail by
Johannes Burman
Johannes Burman (26 April 1707 in Amsterdam – 20 February 1780), was a Dutch botanist and physician. Burman specialized in plants from Ceylon, Amboina and Cape Colony. The name '' Pelargonium'' was introduced by Johannes Burman.
Johannes ...
in his 1737 publication on the flora of
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. Burman used the polynomial ''Ros solis foliis circa radicem in orbem dispositis'',
[Burman, Johannes. 1737]
Thesaurus zeylanicus, exhibens plantas in insula Zeylana nascentes.
Amsterdam. p. 207. but the species was not formally published until 1794 when
Martin Vahl
Martin Henrichsen Vahl (10 October 1749 – 24 December 1804) was a Danish-Norwegian botanist, herbalist and zoologist.
Biography
Martin Vahl was born in Bergen, Norway and attended Bergen Cathedral School. He studied botany at the University ...
named it in honor of Burman as ''Drosera burmanni'' (the species epithet is usually
orthographically
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word, word breaks, Emphasis (typography), emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the ...
corrected to ''burmannii''). In 1871
Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach
Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (Dresden, 3 January 1823 – Hamburg, 6 May 1889) was a botanist and the foremost German orchidologist of the 19th century. His father Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (author of ''Icones Florae Germanicae et Helve ...
described a new species, ''D. dietrichiana'', named after its discoverer
Amalie Dietrich
Koncordie Amalie Dietrich (née Nelle) (26 May 1821 – 9 March 1891) was a German naturalist who was best known for her work in Australia from 1863 to 1872, collecting specimens for the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg.
Australia
Dietrich was one o ...
. In his 1906
monograph
A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject.
In library cataloging, ''monograph ...
of the
Droseraceae
Droseraceae is a family (biology), family of carnivorous flowering plants, also known as the sundew family. It consists of approximately 180 species in three Extant taxon, extant genera. Representatives of the Droseraceae are found on all conti ...
,
Ludwig Diels
Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels (24 September 1874 – 30 November 1945) was a German botanist.
Diels was born in Hamburg, the son of the classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels. From 1900 to 1902 he traveled together with Ernst Georg Prit ...
reduced this species to a
variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of ''D. burmanni.'' This variety was described as being a larger and more robust plant than ''D. burmanni'' var. ''burmanni.'' Both ''D. dietrichiana'' and the variety are now considered synonyms of ''D. burmanni''.
[Schlauer, J. 2009]
World Carnivorous Plant List - Nomenclatural Synopsis of Carnivorous Phanerogamous Plants
Accessed online: 12 September 2009.
See also
*
List of ''Drosera'' species
Gallery
Image:P9270030 Drosera burmanni 02.jpg, Massed plants
Image:P9270030 Drosera burmanni 01.jpg, Habit
Image:Drosera burmannii - The Burmese Sundew at Makutta.jpg, Flower
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q135663
Carnivorous plants of Asia
Carnivorous plants of Australia
Caryophyllales of Australia
burmannii
Eudicots of Western Australia
Flora of Bangladesh
Flora of Thailand
Flora of Vietnam
Flora of Malesia
Flora of New Guinea
Flora of the Northern Territory
Flora of Queensland
Flora of New South Wales
Plants described in 1794
Taxa named by Martin Vahl