Drosera macrantha, the bridal rainbow, is a scrambling or climbing 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 carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

 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 grows in a variety of habitats, including winter-wet depressions in sandy, loam

Loam

Loam is soil composed of sand, silt, and clay in relatively even concentration . Loam soils generally contain more nutrients and humus than sandy soils, have better infiltration and drainage than silty soils, and are easier to till than clay soils...

y, laterite

Laterite

Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...

, or quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

 soils. D. macrantha produces small, cup-shaped carnivorous leaves along a long stem that can be 0.16–1.5 m (0.5249343832021–4.9 ft) high as it climbs. Its 1 in (2.5 cm) white or pink flowers emerge from June to November, blooming earlier in the more northern range.

D. macrantha was first described and named by Stephan Endlicher in 1837. It has a large, variable range, which has led to considerable synonymy

Synonym (taxonomy)

In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that is or was used for a taxon of organisms that also goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies...

. Several subspecies have been published, but most have been moved to or lumped in with the taxon

Taxon

|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...

 D. stricticaulis

Drosera stricticaulis

Drosera stricticaulis, the erect sundew, is an erect perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. It is endemic to Western Australia and is found near watercourses and granite outcrops in sandy clay or loam. D. stricticaulis produces small, cup-shaped carnivorous leaves...

. Drosera stricticaulis itself was even first described by Ludwig Diels

Ludwig Diels

Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels , was a German botanist.Diels was born in Hamburg, the son of the classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels. From 1900 to 1902 he traveled together with Ernst Pritzel through South Africa, Java, Australia and New Zealand. Shortly before the first world war he...

 in 1906 as a variety of this species and was later elevated to species rank. One of the more recent subspecific taxa to be described was D. macrantha subsp. eremaea in 1992 by N. G. Marchant

N. G. Marchant

Neville Graeme Marchant is a retired Western Australian botanist. He was formerly the Director of the Western Australian Herbarium.Marchant began working for the Western Australian Herbarium at the age of 15, as a laboratory assistant to Government Botanist Charles Gardner. Later he attended the...

 and 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...

 (the subspecies D. macrantha subsp. macrantha is an autonym

Autonym (botany)

In botanical nomenclature, autonyms are automatically created names, as regulated by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature . Autonyms are cited without an author. Relevant provisions are in articles 6.8, 22.1-3 and 26.1-3....

). In 1996, Jan Schlauer provided a comprehensive revision and new field key to the genus and also moved subspecies eremaea to a subspecies of D. stricticaulis, though he did not give a specific rationale for this move. Other authorities, such as Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation's FloraBase

FloraBase

FloraBase is a public access web-based database of the flora of Western Australia. It provides authoritative scientific information on 12,978 taxa, including descriptions, maps, images, conservation status and nomenclatural details...

still recognize subspecies eremaea under D. macrantha.