Species
+

Drosera stenopetala Hook.f.

New Zealand sundew

Climate known 67 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 stenopetala is an insectivorous, rosette-forming perennial sub-alpine or alpine herb. It is endemic to New Zealand.

Text from Wikipedia, “Drosera stenopetala”, 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
Hook.f.
Native to
Antipodean Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Wild records
537 in range· 239 open

At a glance

Warmest month
15°C
Feb, mean day; nights 9 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2971mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 293 mm (CHELSA)
Light
8–37DLI
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 (February to July and November to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 2971 mm a year, wettest October at 293 mm, driest February at 177 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 37 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -2.3 °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 atra Colenso.

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 (February to July and November to December 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 (2112 mm of 2971 mm) takes 8 months, August to January and May to June. Mean temperature moves 8.1 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: February to July and November to December.

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 2971 mm a year, wettest October at 293 mm, driest February at 177 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2971 mm a year at the habitat, 2112 mm of it August to January and May to June. Wettest month October at 293 mm, driest February at 177 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1581 mm to 5380 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: 8 to 37 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 37 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 6, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

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 -2.3 °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 -2.3 °C, the absolute minimum -5.5 °C, about 25 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 20.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.7 °C in July (across the envelope cells -3.7 °C to 5.3 °C), warmest day 14.9 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -2.3 °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: 67 to 68% 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 6 °C in Jul to 15 °C in Feb; mean night from 1 °C in Jul to 9 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 2971 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 231 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -5.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 20.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°-5°10°15°20°25°frost20.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-5.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 8–37RH 67–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 231 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 °C15 / 13–1815 / 13–1813 / 11–1611 / 9–149 / 6–116 / 3–96 / 2–97 / 3–108 / 5–1110 / 7–1211 / 9–1413 / 11–16
Night °C8 / 6–119 / 6–127 / 5–106 / 2–94 / -0–72 / -3–61 / -4–51 / -3–62 / -1–64 / 0–75 / 2–87 / 4–10
Rain mm241 / 120–519177 / 109–366214 / 125–453235 / 123–423264 / 147–458267 / 143–446233 / 136–358247 / 121–394271 / 130–476293 / 142–516248 / 120–445281 / 129–555
DLI37 / 35–4232 / 29–3625 / 21–2816 / 13–2010 / 7–138 / 6–1010 / 7–1215 / 12–1621 / 18–2328 / 26–3135 / 32–3837 / 35–41
RH %67 / 64–6967 / 64–6967 / 64–6968 / 64–7168 / 65–7368 / 64–7267 / 62–7168 / 64–7268 / 64–7168 / 64–7167 / 64–7068 / 64–70

Each figure is the median across the 231 grid cells holding the 527 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 2719:6942 (-45.975, 167.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -5.5 °C, 1st-percentile night -2.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 20.0 °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 231 distinct grid cells holding the 527 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2719:6942 (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 -46.00_166.875, lapse-corrected +72 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 510 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.
NativeAntipodean Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-45.21, 167.425 · in the densest population, 312 records (58% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 537 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 239 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 568 km away. 10 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 2° block of the 537 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Drosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetalaDrosera stenopetala

Photographs: (c) Sebastian Doak, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Archie, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) naturewatchwidow, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Jacob Littlejohn, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2).

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

Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2023) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2021) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2021) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2020) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2020) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Drosera stenopetala: Bourke, G.
IUCN (2016) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Drosera stenopetala: Bourke, G.
IUCN (2016) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

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 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.