Drosera bicolor
Encyclopedia
Drosera bicolor is an erect perennial
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 tuber
Tuber
Tubers are various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients. They are used by plants to survive the winter or dry months and provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season and they are a means of asexual reproduction...

ous species in the genus Drosera that is endemic to Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. It produces a basal rosette
Rosette (botany)
In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves, with all the leaves at a single height.Though rosettes usually sit near the soil, their structure is an example of a modified stem.-Function:...

 of leaves similar to that of D. peltata and the stem grows to 11 cm (4 in) high. Its white flowers that have a red spot near the petal base emerge from September to October. D. bicolor grows in deep silica sand on heathland
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...

 along the upper Phillips River
Phillips River
The Phillips River is an ephemeral river in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia.The headwaters of the river rise on the sanplains below Mount Madden and flow in a southerly direction, crossing the South Coast Highway approximately West of Ravensthorpe then entering the Fitzgerald...

 and south-east of Lake King.

D. bicolor was first described by Allen Lowrie
Allen Lowrie
Allen Lowrie is a West Australian botanist. He is living in Duncraig, a Perth suburb, is married and has two daughters.Lowrie, originally a businessman and inventor, got in contact with the carnivorous flora of western Australia in the late sixties and worked on it as an amateur...

 and Sherwin Carlquist
Sherwin Carlquist
Sherwin Carlquist is an American botanist and photographer. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952 and a Ph.D. in botany in 1956, also at Berkeley. Carlquist did a postdoctoral study at Harvard University from 1955 to 1956. After his postdoctoral...

 in 1992. Lowrie notes in his book Carnivorous Plants of Australia that this species is distinct from other related species, including D. peltata and D. salina
Drosera salina
Drosera salina is an erect perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. It is endemic to Western Australia and is only found in salt-free sand on the margins of salt lakes in a few locations north of Albany east to north-west of Esperance. The specific epithet, salina, refers...

, by its bicoloured flowers and the arrangement of its petiole
Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...

s and number of flowers. Some, however, consider this species to simply be a variety or synonymous with D. peltata, though this opinion has not been formally published.
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