All species › Caryophyllales › Sundew family › Drosera colombiana
Drosera colombiana
A sundew named after Colombia, described by the Colombian botanist Álvaro Fernández-Pérez. Drosera colombiana is one of the least known species in this guide: hardly anything has been published on it since the original description, and its status as a separate species has not been confirmed by a modern revision. This text is therefore brief and cautious.
No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.
Identification
A small rosette plant with spatulate leaves densely set with tentacles and one or more thin scapes, comparable to the species of the group around Drosera capillaris and Drosera cayennensis. Reliable measurements, flower colour and diagnostic characters could not be checked from the original description; the size fields are therefore left empty.
Similar species
The most obvious confusion species are Drosera cayennensis, also reported from Colombia, and Drosera capillaris. Drosera panamensis belongs to the same alliance. Whether D. colombiana really differs from them, or will merge with one of them on closer study, is an open question; anyone naming a plant in the field would do well to compare the original description with herbarium material.
The trap and how it works
An active flypaper trap as in the related rosette species. Small insects stick to the droplets on the tentacles, which then bend towards the prey; the prey is digested and the nutrients absorbed.
Habitat and ecology
By analogy with its relatives and the data of the type collection: open, wet, nutrient-poor savannas, seasonally wet hollows and sandy soils (B6, W7, D1). Further data on soil, elevation and associated vegetation could not be checked.
Distribution and elevation
Colombia; as far as known endemic to that country. Where exactly in Colombia the species grows, and whether it also occurs in neighbouring countries, could not be established; the Colombian savannas of the Llanos and the Guiana Shield are the most likely areas.
Forms and variation
No varieties are recognised. The taxonomic position is uncertain: the species is still carried as an accepted name in modern checklists, but without recent material or DNA studies having been published. It is one of the names a future revision of the Neotropical sundews will need to test.
Where and when to see it
For field botanists in Colombia: document every small rosette sundew in open wet savannas carefully, with photographs of leaf, stipules, scape, flower and if possible seed, and with the exact elevation and soil. Such data are needed to establish what D. colombiana actually is.
Conservation status
Not assessed for the global IUCN Red List and not listed in CITES. Almost nothing is known about its distribution, numbers or trends. Colombian savannas are under pressure from expanding agriculture, plantations and cattle ranching. Because of the uncertain taxonomy an assessment is not possible at present.
Scientific name
Drosera colombiana | Fernandez-Perez, 1965
Described by A. Fernández (also cited as Fernández-Pérez) in 1965, in Caldasia, volume 9, p. 226. The taxonomic status is not unambiguous: some sources treat D. colombiana as a synonym of D. cayennensis Sagot ex Diels (golf 38), others as a valid species. Meta department, Colombia; a more precise locality could not be established. Named after Colombia, the country where the species was found.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.