Drosera indicaL.

Indian Sundew

WFO wfo-0000945969 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Drosera indica, photographed by luluchouette
fig. a luluchouette, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-24 / obs. 179732475

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000449665
Filed as
Drosera indica L.
Det. by
Crawford, F,
Collected
Festo et al.
Origin
KE
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 52 botanical countries

Regions where Drosera indica is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam AngolaBeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastKenyaLiberiaMadagascarMaliMozambiqueNamibiaNigerNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabweChina SoutheastHainanJapanTaiwanBangladeshBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnam
Native distribution of Drosera indica, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Mali MLI
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Niger NGR
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Bangladesh BAN ASIA-TROPICAL
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Taiwan TAI

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 205 in flower of 221 examined

Proportion of examined Drosera indica in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 6 8 75% 41% to 93%
Feb 4 5 80% 38% to 96%
Mar 19 21 90% 71% to 97%
Apr 30 32 94% 80% to 98%
May 31 31 100% 89% to 100%
Jun 21 21 100% 85% to 100%
Jul 12 13 92% 67% to 99%
Aug 23 25 92% 75% to 98%
Sep 34 38 89% 76% to 96%
Oct 16 16 100% 81% to 100%
Nov 3 3 too few examined
Dec 6 8 75% 41% to 93%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Drosera indica 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. 205 of 221 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 347 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.7 °C 16.8 °C 23.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.6 °C 31.9 °C 37.7 °C
Annual rainfall 840 mm 2,822 mm 4,440 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 15 mm 145 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 347 research-grade observations of Drosera indica 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 7 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 hexagynia Blanco
  • Drosera indica f. albiflora Makino
  • Drosera indica var. albiflora (Makino) Makino
  • Drosera indica var. makinoi (Masam.) Tamura
  • Drosera makinoi Masam.
  • Drosera metziana Gand.
  • Drosera minor Schumach. & Thonn.

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.