tuberous-drosera.net --- Drosera modesta

tuberous-drosera.net --- home for tuberous drosera

Drosera modesta

Drosera modesta is a climbing species reaching up to 135 cm in height but most plants do not reach more than 60-80 cm in typical growing seasons. The plants are usually green-yellow in colour. This species produces few small bracts at the lower part of the stem. The leaves are scattered mostly in groups of 3, the stem is glabrous at the lower part and the remainder glandular.
The tubers are red and this species very readily produces additional tubers by formation of adventitious stolons.


D. modesta tubers. This species propagates readily through the formation of adventitious stolons.


The leaves are arranged in groups of 3. First one leaf with a petiole up to 40 mm long is formed which may be used to attach the plant to nearby grasses or shrub for support. Later 2 additional leaves on short petioles are formed which are then available to catch prey.


According to Lowrie just few plants per colony flower each year in the habitat.


The flowers open for a fwe hours only. I actually never really tried to pollinate this species so far and I never harvested any seeds (from some accidental pollination).

In 2009 the temperature in my setup sank during the night to below -5°C before I noticed what happened. As some very cold nights were forecasted, I had already brought most plants into a warmer place. Just one tray with mostly climbing drosera but also D. cistiflora and, of course, D. modesta remained in its spot at the wall as I expected that they would be protected from low temperatures there.
It was about 5 a.m. when I noticed that the temperature was much lower than I expected, so I went to bring this tray into safety. Quite to my surprise I found that all D. modesta drops were frozen whereas none of the other Drosera species in that tray had frozen dew drops.
After I made the 4 quick snapshots you can see below, the plants finally got some warmer spot. Many D. modesta leaves slowly blackened during the next two weeks, but aside from that the plants did not get any permanent damage. If I remember correctly, the other species showed no or nearly no damage.

It would be nice to know why D. modesta dew drops freeze much more easily than those of other species.

Please respect that all texts and photos were created by me and may not be used without my permission.