Drosera pygmaea, Burbank QLD 4156, Australia

Drosera pygmaea DC.

Droseraceae

Climate known 58 photographs Carnivorous plant

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 pygmaea is a carnivorous, rosette-forming biennial or annual species of herb native to Australia and New Zealand. The specific epithet, which translates as "dwarf" from Latin, is a reference to the very small size of this plant, which grows to between 8 and 18 mm in diameter. Small, pale flowers are produced at the ends of 1- to 3-inch stems. It is perhaps the most well-known of the pygmy sundews. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Drosera pygmaea”, 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

DC.

Native to

New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia +5

Wild records

1814 in range· 1398 open

At a glance

Warmest month

23°C

Feb, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

839mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Jun 93 mm (CHELSA)

Light

12–45DLI

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 (October to May in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 839 mm a year, wettest June at 93 mm, driest February at 44 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 12 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 4.0 °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 Drosera pusilla R.Br.; Drosera pusilla R.Br. ex DC.

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 (October to May 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 (617 mm of 839 mm) takes 8 months, April to November. Mean temperature moves 8.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: October to May.

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 839 mm a year, wettest June at 93 mm, driest February at 44 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

839 mm a year at the habitat, 617 mm of it April to November. Wettest month June at 93 mm, driest February at 44 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 599 mm to 1543 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 12 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 12 to 45 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 9, the highest 90th-percentile month 49).

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 4.0 °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 4.0 °C, the absolute minimum 0.5 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.1 °C in July (across the envelope cells 3.3 °C to 10.6 °C), warmest day 22.7 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 4.0 °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: 59 to 62% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 985 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	23 / 17–27	23 / 18–27	21 / 16–24	18 / 15–21	15 / 13–18	13 / 11–16	12 / 10–15	13 / 11–16	14 / 12–19	16 / 13–21	19 / 15–22	21 / 16–25
Night °C	14 / 11–19	15 / 12–19	14 / 10–18	12 / 8–15	10 / 6–13	8 / 4–12	7 / 3–11	8 / 4–11	9 / 5–12	10 / 6–13	11 / 8–15	13 / 10–17
Rain mm	55 / 21–113	44 / 20–136	57 / 28–119	66 / 38–137	77 / 53–146	93 / 64–155	87 / 61–170	86 / 61–171	72 / 53–147	70 / 44–125	66 / 32–118	66 / 32–126
DLI	45 / 40–49	39 / 35–43	31 / 27–34	22 / 18–25	15 / 11–18	12 / 9–16	13 / 10–18	18 / 15–24	26 / 22–31	35 / 31–38	41 / 38–45	44 / 41–48
RH %	59 / 53–62	60 / 53–63	60 / 55–63	60 / 57–63	61 / 59–65	62 / 58–67	62 / 57–67	61 / 56–65	60 / 56–63	59 / 56–62	60 / 55–62	59 / 54–62

Each figure is the median across the 985 grid cells holding the 1726 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 2561:6428 (-38.075, 141.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 0.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.7 °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 985 distinct grid cells holding the 1726 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2561:6428 (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 -38.00_141.250, lapse-corrected +60 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 114 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.

NativeNew South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, New Zealand North, New Zealand South

Kew's description“perennial” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-41.449, 147.896 · in the densest population, 1391 records (77% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1814 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1398 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 3 km away. 88 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 1814 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Rolf Lawrenz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Peter Crowcroft, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Thomas Mesaglio, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) ttsquid, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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 pygmaea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Vegetative Entwicklung und Blütenbildung in axenischen Kulturen der InsektivoreDrosera pygmaea DC.

Richard Harder (1964) · Planta

Morphology and ultrastructure of isolated gemmae of Drosera pygmaea and their in vitro germination

M. Bobák, Jozef Šamaj, Alžbeta Blehová, Miroslav Ovečka (1998) · Biologia Plantarum

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Drosera pygmaea DC.