Droseraceae

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Droseraceae
Fossil range: Late Cretaceous – Recent

Venus flytrap

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae, core eudicots
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Droseraceae Salisb. (1808)

Genera

Aldrovanda
Dionaea
Drosera
†Droserapollis
†Droserapites
†Droseridites
†Fischeripollis
†Palaeoaldrovanda
†Saxonipollis

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Droseraceae

Droseraceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. The family is also known under its common name, the sundew family.

It consists of carnivorous plants: besides the sundews, the genus Drosera, it also contains the even more famous Venus fly trap, Dionaea muscipula. The sundews produce sticky substances on their leaves that traps prey, and the Venus fly trap has leaves that form traps that close when disturbed. The plants in Aldrovanda vesiculosa might be characterised as an aquatic Venus flytrap.

The family Droseraceae had been universally recognized by taxonomists. The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), also recognizes this family and assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots. The family comprises three genera, totalling about a hundred species.

In the past Drosophyllum lusitanicum has been included in this family, but in the APG II system it forms its own monotypic family Drosophyllaceae. Recent molecular and biochemical evidence (see the AP-Website) suggests that the carnivorous taxa in the order Caryophyllales (the families Droseraceae, Drosophyllaceae, Nepenthaceae, and the species Triphyophyllum peltatum) all belong to the same clade which does not consist only of carnivorous plants but also includes some non-carnivorous plants such as those in the family Ancistrocladaceae.

The fossil record of Droseraceae is the richest of any carnivorous plant family. Fossil pollen has been attributed to several extant as well as extinct genera, although some are of questionable validity.