Drosera camporupestris — Vorstman's Guide to the Carnivorous Plants

Identification

A perennial plant that with age forms an upright or sprawling stem densely clothed in the dead leaves of previous seasons; the living rosette sits on top of that column. The leaves are narrow and semi-erect, with tentacles on the upper part. The scape carries pink flowers. Exact measurements have not been adopted here, because the original description could not be fully consulted.

Similar species

Other stem-forming sundews grow in the same mountains. Drosera graomogolensis from northern Minas Gerais also has a column of old leaves; Drosera chrysolepis stands out for its golden-brown stipules. Members of the D. villosa complex, such as Drosera latifolia, usually form only short columns and have broader blades. Identification needs attention to stipules, scape hairs and leaf shape.

The trap and how it works

An active flypaper trap. The tentacles on the narrow leaves catch small insects, which are then enclosed and digested by surrounding tentacles. Because the rosette stands on a column above the ground, the plant catches many flying as well as crawling prey.

Habitat and ecology

Campos rupestres on quartzite: open, sunny places with white sand and gravel, seepages along rock slabs and seepage zones that are soaked in the wet season and partly dry out in the dry season (R1, D2, W4). The stem of old leaves holds moisture and protects the growing point from the fires that regularly sweep this landscape.

Distribution and elevation

According to the 2022 Brazilian synopsis endemic to the state of Minas Gerais in south-eastern Brazil, in the mountains of the Espinhaço range. Older records from outside Minas Gerais are not confirmed in the recent treatment. A published altitudinal range has not been adopted.

Recorded (one-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 3 one-degree squares — roughly a hundred and ten kilometres — in which the species has been recorded, from all GBIF records. This is coarser than for most species because hardly any record of this plant carries an accurate coordinate: the locality of poached species is obscured at source. At this scale that obscuring disappears into the noise. The cells show where it has been seen, not where it occurs: an empty square means nothing.

Forms and variation

No varieties are recognised. The species is one of many sundews described from the campos rupestres only in recent decades; the area is considered a centre of speciation within the genus, with many species growing on only one or a few ridges.

Where and when to see it

The wet season, roughly November to March, is the best time. On the wet edges of sand flats and rock slabs in the Espinhaço mountains, look for small columns of brown dead leaves topped by a red-glistening rosette. Do not walk across the wet sand flats themselves: the ground is fragile and many small species grow mixed together there.

Conservation status

Not assessed for the global IUCN Red List and not listed in CITES. The species is confined to a single state and a specific landscape type. Threats to the campos rupestres are quarrying of quartzite and mining of gemstones, overly frequent fire, invasive grasses and tourism.

Scientific name

Drosera camporupestris | Rivadavia, 2003

Described by Fernando Rivadavia in 2003, in Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, volume 32, p. 85-87. Serra do Cipó, in "campos rupestres" within Fazenda da Serra do Cipó, Jaboticatubas municipality, Minas Gerais, Brazil, at 1215 m elevation; collected by Rivadavia-Lopes on 6 July 1995 (holotype SPF-00155000). From the Latin campus ("field, plain") and rupestris ("growing among rocks") — refers directly to the "campo rupestre" habitat: rocky grassland vegetation of the Brazilian highlands.

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