Drosera capenis 'Alba'
MEDIUM

Description: The easiest of all carnivorous plants to grow and is ideally suited for beginners.

This species differs from the typical form that it has white flowers and the tentacles stay green and produce clear dew on the leaves that give the plant a ghostly look.
Must be potted in peat:sand compost in the ratio 3:1 and stood in 2cm of rain water. The plant supplied will have leaves 1-2 inches in length.
These are also ideal for use in the greenhouse as an organic pest control system.
Notes: Drosera capensis grows in South Africa and is one of the easiest and one of the most efficient of all the sundews to grow. They are amongst a few of the sundews that are capable of movement - when prey is caught on the leaves they start to curl around to form a greater contact, taking upto an hour for the leaf to surround its meal.
The digestive of the prey usually takes 1-2 weeks, after which the leaf will then straighten out and prepare for its next meal.
The leaves are quite thin and flat with glistening dew covering the upper half of the leaf. They can often reach over 2 inch in length. Prey must penetrate thru this mucilage to stimulate the leaf gland. Darwin found that 0.000822 milligram of matter will stimulate the gland of the leaf. This is a protective measure for the plant, as it avoids producing digestive fluid when rain, dust or plant matter falls on the leaf. This would waste the plants energy.

This species can form multiple stems over time with the previous growth dying off; this is replaced by new growth from the centre of the plant. The plants flower frequently and are borne on tall flower stalks that can reach over 1 ft. Each stalk can produce about 20 flowers, the flowers open one at a time starting at the lower buds and ascending up the stalk. The flowers are self fertile and produce vast quantity of seed.

Flowering can drain the energy of the plant which can result in slower growth, the plant will recover after flowering but to produce a larger plant remove the flower stalk when it is a couple of inches tall.

They make great organic fly trap for the greenhouse or windowsill and are best grown in a temperature range of 40-60F. When they are kept in these conditions they grow all year with no dormancy. In extremes they have been known to take brief periods of temperatures of below freezing to well over 100F. If the plants freeze the crowns tend to die back and the plants regrow from the roots.