Species library › Drosera › Drosera indica
Carnivorous Well documented

Drosera indica

Indian sundew

A fast-growing annual sundew with long, narrow, sticky leaves up to 10 cm, found across tropical Africa, Madagascar and tropical to warm-temperate Asia. Young plants stand upright, then the stem lengthens and scrambles over grasses, reaching 5–50 cm, with white, pink, orange or purple flowers. In the wild it grows in open, seasonally wet ground during the monsoon and survives the dry season as seed, so at home it is best treated as a warm, bright, wet-grown annual raised from seed.

Drosera indica
Photo: J.M.Garg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day Warm-growingTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Ordinary room humidityBand in Plantistry
Light Full sunDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
Expects a seasonal restGrows in the ground

Where it grows wild

It grows in open, sunny, seasonally waterlogged places: wet sand, laterite flats and seepages, grassland that ponds in the rains, swamp and pool margins and drainage channels. Plants appear with the rains, flower and set seed within a few months, and die as the ground dries.

Recorded from 1 m to 1675 m, median 350 m (95 records); mostly lowland to low hills, such as the laterite plateaus of the Western Ghats.

West and Central AfricaEast AfricaSouthern AfricaMadagascarIndiaSri LankaBangladeshMyanmarThailandIndochinaSoutheast ChinaHainanTaiwanJapanPhilippinesMalesia

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, unmodified.