Drosera microphylla, the golden rainbow, 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 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 on 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....

 or in sandy or 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...

 soils. D. microphylla produces small, circular, peltate

Leaf shape

In botany, leaf shape is characterised with the following terms :* Acicular : Slender and pointed, needle-like* Acuminate : Tapering to a long point...

 carnivorous leaves along erect stems that can be 10–40 cm (3.9–15.7 in) high. It blooms from June to September, displaying its large golden sepal

Sepal

A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...

s and smaller, variably-coloured petals. In populations near Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

, the petals are red, whereas petal colour near Albany

Albany, Western Australia

Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, some 418 km SE of Perth, the state capital. As of 2009, Albany's population was estimated at 33,600, making it the 6th-largest city in the state....

 tends to be orange. Some plants east of Esperance

Esperance, Western Australia

Esperance is a large town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The shire of Esperance is home to 9,536 people as of the 2006 census, its major industries are tourism, agriculture,...

 have white petals.

D. microphylla was first described and named by Stephan Endlicher in 1837. In 1848, Jules Émile Planchon

Jules Émile Planchon

Jules Émile Planchon was a French botanist born in Ganges, Hérault.-Biography:After receiving his Doctorate of Science at the University of Montpellier in 1844, he worked for a while at the Royal Botanical Gardens in London, and for a few years was a teacher in Nancy and Ghent...

 described the new species D. calycina, which was later reduced to 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...

 with D. microphylla. 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 :...

 described the new variety D. calycina var. minor in 1864. This 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...

 was also reduced to a synonym of D. microphylla. Lastly, in his 1906 taxonomic monograph

Monograph

A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 of the family Droseraceae

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...

, 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...

also described a new variety, D. microphylla var. macropetala, which was also later reduced to a synonym.