Species
+

Drosera anglica Huds.

English Sundew, Great Sundew, Langblättriger Sonnentau (DE); Great Sundew (EN), mikinalo

Climate known 72 photographs Carnivorous plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Drosera anglica, commonly known as the English sundew or great sundew, is a carnivorous flowering plant species belonging to the sundew family Droseraceae. It is a temperate species with a circumboreal range, although it does occur as far south as Japan, southern Europe, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii, where it grows as a tropical sundew. It is thought to originate from an amphidiploid hybrid of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis, meaning that a sterile hybrid between these two species doubled its chromosomes to produce fertile progeny which stabilized into the current D. anglica.

Text from Wikipedia, “Drosera anglica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Drosera

Drosera, which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Drosera”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Droseraceae
Described by
Huds.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +68
Wild records
1879 in range· 1467 open

At a glance

Warmest month
19°C
Jul, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
884mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 101 mm (CHELSA)
Light
1–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Drosera, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 884 mm a year, wettest July at 101 mm, driest April at 48 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 1 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -18.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Adenopa anglica (Huds.) Raf.; Drosera anglica f. pusilla Kihlm.; Drosera anglica f. pusilla Kihlm. ex Diels; Drosera anglica subsp. minor (Abromeit) Hegi; Drosera anglica subsp. pusilla (Kihlm.) Hjelt and 24 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Drosera, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (671 mm of 884 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 18.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 884 mm a year, wettest July at 101 mm, driest April at 48 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

884 mm a year at the habitat, 671 mm of it June to January. Wettest month July at 101 mm, driest April at 48 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 660 mm to 2288 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 1 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 1 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 0, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -18.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -18.5 °C, the absolute minimum -32.2 °C, about 141 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -6.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells -13.8 °C to 2.2 °C), warmest day 18.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -18.5 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 70% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from -1 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul; mean night from -7 °C in Jan to 12 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 884 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1697 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -32.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°frost25.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-32.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 1–34RH 58–70 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1697 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-1 / -8–6-1 / -8–63 / -3–87 / 2–1112 / 8–1616 / 12–1919 / 14–2217 / 14–2113 / 9–178 / 3–133 / -3–9-0 / -7–6
Night °C-7 / -14–2-7 / -13–2-4 / -9–30 / -5–55 / 1–89 / 6–1112 / 9–1411 / 8–148 / 4–114 / -1–8-1 / -8–5-5 / -12–3
Rain mm65 / 44–26649 / 34–20153 / 36–20248 / 34–13263 / 44–13185 / 65–138101 / 72–157100 / 74–17982 / 61–21188 / 62–25581 / 57–24869 / 49–243
DLI2 / 0–87 / 4–1314 / 11–2124 / 22–3033 / 30–3534 / 30–3731 / 27–3624 / 20–3015 / 12–228 / 4–143 / 1–81 / 0–6
RH %69 / 63–7467 / 62–7364 / 61–6760 / 59–6558 / 56–6459 / 56–6560 / 59–6762 / 61–6764 / 62–6867 / 63–7170 / 64–7370 / 64–74

Each figure is the median across the 1697 grid cells holding the 1811 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 608:3819 (59.575, 10.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -32.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -18.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1697 distinct grid cells holding the 1811 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 608:3819 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 59.50_11.250, lapse-corrected +49 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 177 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Primorye, Sakhalin, Transcaucasus, Manchuria, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Labrador, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, Québec, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan, California
Extinct inBelgium· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker57.364, -5.244 · in the densest population, 272 records (14% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1879 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1467 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 16 km away. 3 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 68 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1879 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Drosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglicaDrosera anglica

Photographs: (c) Ryan Hodnett, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); no rights reserved · CC0 (7).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Drosera anglica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Seed dormancy-breaking and germination requirements ofDrosera anglica, an insectivorous species of the Northern Hemisphere
Carol C. Baskin, Per Milberg, Lars Andersson, Jerry M. Baskin (2001) · Acta Oecologica
Underdeveloped embryos in dwarf seeds and implications for assignment to dormancy class
Carol C. Baskin, Jerry M. Baskin (2005) · Seed Science Research
Evidence for the hybrid origin of Drosera anglica
Carroll E. Wood (1955) · Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution)
Minor pollinator–prey conflict in the carnivorous plant, Drosera anglica
Gillian L. Murza, Joanne R. Heaver, Arthur R. Davis (2005) · Plant Ecology
Demography and population dynamics ofDrosera anglicaandD. rotundifolia
Jern‐Frode Nordbakken, Knut Rydgren, Rune Halvorsen Økland (2004) · Journal of Ecology
Flowering phenology and reproductive biology of Drosera anglica(Droseraceae)
Gillian L. Murza, Arthur R. Davis (2005) · Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society
The production of 7-methyljuglone, quercetin and kaempferol by Drosera anglica and D. rotundifolia.
Miroslav Repčák, Bertalan Galambosi, Niilo Takkunen (2000) · Jukuri (Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke))
In vitro conservation of certain endangered and rare species of Romanian spontaneous flora.
Vasile Laslo, M. Zăpârţan, E. Agud (2011) · Analele Universităţii din Oradea, Fascicula: Protecţia Mediului

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Drosera 203 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 141 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.