Droseraoeae

Droseraoeae, a small but widely distributed order of herbaceous plants allied to the saxifrages. They have generally white flowers with five sepals, five petals, five, ten, or fifteen stamens, and three to five styles, the ovary being one-chambered and forming a many-seeded loculicidal capsule. They are marsh plants with but slightly developed roots and are all apparently carnivorous plants (q.v.). Drosera, the largest and most widely dispersed genus, gets its scientific name and the popular name, sundew, from the drops of viscid liquid excreted at the apex of the hair-like "tentacles "or lobes of its leaves. This secretion, present in several of the other genera, is absent in Dioncea (q.v.), where its function is replaced by the instantaneous electrical folding of the leaves. Drosera is reddish, having little chlorophyll, and its flowers are small and often cleistogamous.