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Drosera bindoon
Drosera bindoon is one of the many sundews Allen Lowrie described in 2014 in his three-volume Carnivorous Plants of Australia Magnum Opus. The epithet is a place name, taken from Bindoon, a town north of Perth in the hills of the Darling Range. Beyond that original description almost nothing has been published about the plant, which makes this text necessarily short.
Identification
The accessible sources lack a description of the plant itself: growth form, leaf shape, measurements, flower colour and flowering time could not be established for this guide. Its placement within the genus (pygmy sundew, tuberous sundew or another group) could not be verified either. All measurement fields are therefore left empty. Anyone wishing to recognise the plant must go back to the original description in Lowrie's work (2014).
Similar species
Without a reliable description no meaningful comparison with related species can be given. Many other sundews occur around Bindoon, both pygmy and tuberous species, so confusion in the field is very likely. Identification from this guide alone is not possible.
The trap and how it works
Like all sundews the plant catches prey with an active flypaper trap: stalked glands on the leaf secrete sticky droplets in which small insects become stuck, after which the tentacles bend towards the prey and secrete digestive enzymes. Details of leaf structure and capture in this species are not known from the accessible sources.
Habitat and ecology
FloraBase places the species in the Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions, in the Dandaragan Plateau and Northern Jarrah Forest subregions. This points to a site in or at the edge of the open jarrah eucalypt forest of the northern hills (B6). A more precise habitat description was not available; the code is provisional.
Distribution and elevation
Endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. FloraBase knows the species only from the Shire of Chittering, north of Perth. It is thus a species with a very small known range.
- Recorded (one-degree cells)
Forms and variation
No subspecies or varieties have been described. Because the species dates only from 2014 and has been little tested by other researchers, its boundaries with related species are not yet settled.
Where and when to see it
No field tip can be given for this species beyond this: search the hills around Bindoon, photograph every sundew you find in detail (rosette, leaves, flower) and compare them afterwards with the original description. Records from so small a population are valuable, but pass on location data only through official channels.
Conservation status
The IUCN code in this guide is Vulnerable (VU). Remarkably, FloraBase lists the species as not threatened at the same time; the assessments therefore disagree, possibly because the Western Australian list has not yet been updated for the 2014 names. Not in CITES. A small range in a district with farming, road building and expanding settlement makes a vulnerable status plausible. The source base is very thin: Lowrie's original description (2014) is the only good source and could not be consulted for this guide.
Scientific name
Drosera bindoon | Lowrie, 2013
Described by Allen Lowrie, in "Carnivorous Plants of Australia Magnum Opus", volume 3, p. 1269 (title page 2013, published December 2013/2014). Collected by Allen Lowrie on 24 October 1998, about 280 m west of Reserve Road, Muchea, Western Australia (31°31'38"S, 115°59'44"E), collection no. 2160; holotype at PERTH, isotypes at MEL and Herb. Lowrie. About 280 m west of Reserve Road, Muchea, Western Australia (31°31'38"S, 115°59'44"E). The meaning of the name could not be confirmed with a source. It seems likely that the name refers to the town of Bindoon, Western Australia, which lies near the type locality/region, but this remains a guess.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.