Drosera menziesii, the pink rainbow, is an erect or scrambling 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. It 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...

 and grows in a variety of habitats, including winter-wet depressions, swamps, and granite outcrops

Granite outcrops of Western Australia

Granite outcrops of Western Australia are inselbergs and monoliths made from granite that are found across much of Western Australia. Rising abruptly from the surrounding landscape they create a variety of microhabitats for plants, and provide seasonal resources and refuge for a range of animals....

 in clay or peat

Peat

Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...

 sand soils or 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...

. D. menziesii produces small, circular carnivorous leaves along an undulating erect stem that can be 0.05–1.1 m (0.164041994750656–3.6 ft) high. Its pink flowers emerge from July to November.

Drosera menziesii was first mentioned by Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

 and then formally described by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1824. Four subspecies have been published, including the 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 1864, George Bentham

George Bentham

George Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...

 published three varieties: var. albiflora, which is now a synonym of D. macrantha

Drosera macrantha

Drosera macrantha, the bridal rainbow, is a scrambling or climbing perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera that is endemic to Western Australia. It grows in a variety of habitats, including winter-wet depressions in sandy, loamy, laterite, or quartzite soils...

and var. flavescens, which is no longer a valid taxon and had been used to refer to what are now known as D. intricata

Drosera intricata

Drosera intricata is a scrambling or climbing perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera that is endemic to Western Australia. It grows in clay-sand soils on swamp margins, or other habitats that are seasonally wet. D. intricata produces small carnivorous leaves along a...

and Drosera subhirtella

Drosera subhirtella

Drosera subhirtella, the sunny rainbow, is a scrambling or climbing perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. It is endemic to Western Australia and is found in sandplains, granite outcrops, and swamp margins in sand, clay, and loam soils. D. subhirtella produces small...

. In the same year, Bentham described a new species, D. penicillaris, which 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...

 reduced to a variety under D. menziesii in 1906. 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...

 later moved var. penicillaris to a subspecies of D. menziesii in 1992. Ludwig Diels also described a new species, D. thysanosepala in 1906, which N. G. Marchant reduced to a subspecies of D. menziesii in 1982. Lastly, Marchant and Lowrie described subspecies basifolia in 1992, which they note is distinguished by the dense cluster of basal, alternate cauline leaves on the lower part of the stem.