Drosera capillarisPoir.

pink sundew

WFO wfo-0000945861 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Drosera capillaris, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. a Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 204549745
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. b Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204549437
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. c Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204549806
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. d Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204555627
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. e Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198245461
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. f Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198245415
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. g Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198245382
Drosera capillaris, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. h Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198246361

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 39 botanical countries

Regions where Drosera capillaris is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Belize, Brazil North, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMarylandMexico GulfMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestMississippiNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginiaWest VirginiaBelizeBrazil NorthBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicFrench GuianaGuyanaHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoUruguayVenezuela DelawareDistrict of Columbia
Native distribution of Drosera capillaris, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil North BZN
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Puerto Rico PUE
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Mississippi MSI
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 167 in flower of 1,045 examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Drosera capillaris observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 167 of 1,045 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,920 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.3 °C 8.7 °C 17.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.1 °C 31.5 °C 33.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,270 mm 1,457 mm 1,932 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 156 mm 259 mm 361 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,920 research-grade observations of Drosera capillaris that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 5 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Drosera brevifolia var. major Hook.
  • Drosera communis var. breviscapa C.Wright ex Griseb.
  • Drosera minor Wood
  • Drosera rotundifolia var. capillaris Eaton & Wright
  • Drosera tenella Willd. ex Schult.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.