Drosera chrysolepis — Vorstman's Guide to the Carnivorous Plants

Drosera chrysolepis — the flower — **The flower** · Photo: Rosťa Kracík — CC BY 3.0 cz · Wikimedia Commons

Identification

A perennial rosette on an upright stem that lengthens with age and becomes clothed in dead leaves and the characteristic golden-brown, triangular stipules. The leaves are semi-erect, with a narrow petiole and a lanceolate to oblong blade densely set with red tentacles. The scape is long and carries pink flowers. The description of D. quartzicola shows that D. chrysolepis differs from that sister species in forming a stem, in a petiole clearly narrower than the blade, and in longer scapes. Exact measurements have not been adopted here.

Similar species

Its nearest relative is Drosera quartzicola, which grows only in a small area of Minas Gerais and remains stemless or forms only short columns, with a petiole about as wide as the blade. Other stem-forming species in the area, such as Drosera camporupestris and Drosera graomogolensis, lack the strikingly golden stipules. When in doubt always look at the stipules at the leaf bases.

The trap and how it works

An active flypaper trap. The tentacles on the blade catch small insects in their mucilage droplets and then bend towards the prey; because the rosette stands on a stem above the vegetation, the leaves catch both crawling and flying prey. Digested remains often stay visible on older leaves.

Habitat and ecology

Open, sunny campos rupestres on quartzite in the mountains of central-eastern Brazil: wet sandy ground and seepages along rock slabs, but also somewhat drier, gravelly sand where the water table is high in the wet season (R1, D2, W4). Forming a stem helps the plant grow above competing grasses and resprout after fire.

Distribution and elevation

Brazil, centred on the Espinhaço range in Minas Gerais; unlike its sister species D. quartzicola it is not listed in the 2022 synopsis among the species confined to Minas Gerais, so it also occurs in neighbouring states. The precise limits of the range could not be checked here. 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 11 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 closely related to D. quartzicola, described only in 2011 from plants that might previously have passed as an aberrant form of D. chrysolepis. Older records from the area of D. quartzicola should therefore be read with caution.

Where and when to see it

In the wet season scan the sandy, quartzite-rich slopes of the Espinhaço range, especially where water seeps over rock slabs. The golden-brown stipules shine in low morning light and make the plant recognisable even without flowers. Keep to paths: campos rupestres recover slowly.

Conservation status

Not assessed for the global IUCN Red List and not listed in CITES. The range is larger than that of many relatives, and part of it lies in protected areas. Fire, invasive grasses, mining and climate change threaten the campos rupestres in general; for the sister species D. quartzicola exactly these factors are named as the main threats.

Scientific name

Drosera chrysolepis | Taubert, 1893

Described by Paul Hermann Wilhelm Taubert in 1893, in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, volume 17, p. 505. A lectotype was only designated in 1997 (Silva & Giulietti), based on material by Glaziou (no. 18857) from Serra do Cipó, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1891/92, held at Kew (K), with isolectotypes at B and P. Serra do Cipó, Minas Gerais, Brazil (lectotype locality, designated in 1997; Taubert's own original type locality is not separately confirmed). From the Greek chrysos ("gold") and lepis ("scale") — probably refers to the golden-brown stipules of the plant.

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