Best flower shot for this species I have ever seen!! D. adelae is a great sundew despite its present commonality. Scary thing is, I remember when this was a very rare and sought after species w-a-a-a-y back when. It took me 3 tries and a half year to get one from Australia back in the days of snail mail when it took a month to get a letter delivered. Computers and the internet have made so much more possible than it used to be. I must have sent out hundreds of plants back in the early '70's all from that original (and illegal <blush>) import. Just goes to show that rare plants don't HAVE to be rare, and I hope someday they are ALL as common as lint.
This is a fun species to experiment with, since it is so generous with its offsets. Although most growers seem to opt for the softer lush green and dewy presentation via terrarium growing, it is also possible to acclimate the plant to full sun. Under these conditions the plant can attain a nearly purple color on the leaves, with firey red-orange glands! The trick is to go slowly to avoid sunburning the leaves. I went with broken sunlight around April under a bush, then in an open terrarium in full sun with white garbage bags in 3 layers to cut the sunlight reducing the layers weekly. Once the leaves looked dark and dewy, the plastic went and the plant sat in tray water where it thrived in the full sunlight where it could catch prey. Too bad Drosera schizandra (a close relative) wasn't as ammenable.
Anyone out there growing any of the variants? There are plants with orange, pink and white flowers, and one clone that produces rosettes some 10 inches tip to tip. I yearn for your photo's!
Please enjoy!
