Drosera cistiflora is a winter growing, summer dormant, sundew native to South Africa. It grows around the Cape, which has a Mediterranean climate.
It's growth is unusual in that it comes out of dormancy as a rosette, then puts out a weak to moderately strong stem as the season progresses. The stem on my adult plants have been between 6" and 13" (15 - 32 cm).
Its' flowers are the largest in the genus, measuring by some accounts between 3.5" and 4" (8.5 - 10 cm).
Drosera cistiflora Cultivation
Drosera cistiflora grows around the South African Cape extending west, and a little east of there.
South Africa has a Mediterranean climate which means it has winter rains and very dry summers, which is why the summer dormancy.
There is a French language site that I have listed in my resources section that mentions that some plants are subject to extremely dry soil in the summer in one area, but it stays moist 1/2" or 1" below the surface in another area closer to the cape.
Temperatures are somewhat dependent on their altitude, but the temperatures I have seen described are between 41° to 68° (5° and 20° C) with occasional lows to 32° (0° C).
Soil is described as sand or clay, with a little organic matter. I would not take this to mean you can plant it in your backyard soil however.
Adult Drosera cistiflora growing in bog in my backyard.
I planted the seeds for Drosear cistiflora about three years ago in little seed cells. The kind you buy at nursery or Home Depot type store. 72 cells per flat I believe.
I used a soil mix of 1 part sand to 1 part peat, and just sprinkled the seeds over the top of the soil.
I kept them in about 1" of reverse osmosis water.
Quite a few grew and many made it to maturity. I left them in the seed cells for a couple of years and they grew very slowly. The rosette was only an inch or so in diameter, and the stems were only a few inches tall. I just didn't have time to transplant them.
Propagating From Seed
I have not done this, but I have been told you can propagate from the rosetted leaves as well as the leaves on the stem. One person on the CP listserve also stated they grew it from stem cuttings as well.
When should you do this? Try it anytime. However, the earlier in the season the better. If you start it later the new plant may not go dormant the first year, not that this is a bad thing.
I've been told by 3 sources that just floating the leaves on water will do the trick.
Propagating From Leaf Cuttings
I have grown mine in the standard 1 part sand and 1 part peat mixture, as well as New Zealand sphagnum. The NZ sphagnum is expensive, but when you realize that I've seen little plants sold for $30, it doesn't seem so bad. The two plants I grew in it did much better than the ones in peat/sand; however, there may be reasons other than the soil mixture for that. In the future I will try a looser soil mix of more sand or perhaps Sand/Peat/Perlite.
Soil
Over the summer I keep them in just a little water, letting the water evaporate completely once in a while. They were growing with some Drosera glabripes, so I didn't want to let them dry out completely. You can let them dry out more than this, and it's possible, mine are from an area that doesn't dry out so this worked. If yours are from an area that does dry out completely, keeping them wet might cause a problem. How do you know? You would need location information when you get your seeds or plants. Otherwise it's just a guess.
Dormancy
Second year of growth in seed cells
All my plants have been subject to living outdoors in a tray system. One of my plants was brought in and grown under lights in a wardian case this year. The difference in the two plants is interesting, but not telling.
Local Weather Conditions
I live in San Jose CA, which is USDA Zone 9, and Sunset Zone 15. We have a Mediterranean climate that has the winters and summers softened by the "Bay Affect." The Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco bay combine to keep winters from getting too cold and summers from getting too hot.
We do get hard frosts and an occasional severe freeze. Severe is relative of course. Every ten years or so we get a big freeze that kills a lot of landscape plants.
We also get temperatures in excess of 100 F in the summer. It's a fairly dry heat, but evenings get very comfortable, and the fog, which covers the coast,
How I grow mine
Last winter I transplanted them into 4"plastic starter pots. The kind that fit snugly into a tray and you usually use to grow seedlings into fairly good sized plants. They grew significantly that year. However, I transplanted them during active growth and some may have died because of that.
Drosera cistiflora have the largest flowers of all the Drosera. The flowers can be 3.5" to 4" (8.5 - 10 cm) in diameter.
The flowers are predominaently pink. However, other colors observed have been white, purple, cream to yellowish and more rarely red and even orange.
Bloom time in the Northern Hemisphere in January/February, and August/September in the Southern Hemisphere. However, I had one of my plants flower in May. Go figure.
Flowering
Drosera cistiflora in bloom February 21, 2002. This is the plant grown in the wardian case.
The Savage Garden, Peter D'Amato: Always the first resource to go to.
Google: The below links were probably found through www.google.com. I always use it to find links, although it can take a while to sift through the garbage. I've included some links to help narrow down your search.
Drosera cistiflora in bloom May 13, 2002. This is the plant grown outside.
Growing experience
After transplanting them to larger pots as I described in the Propagating From Seed section they really took off. I put the two largest in a New Zealand Spagnum. The rest in peat/sand. The rosettes this year of the ones the the NZ Spagnum were 3 in diameter before they started to grow their vertical stem. Soon after they started growing their stem I took one plant and put it in my wardian case inside, and left the other outside. The outside plant eventually was transplanted into my bog, along with one of the other smaller D. cistiflora that was in peat/sand.
The plant in the wardian case was subject to a fair degree of heat, and low humidity, (especially as it grew closer to the fluorescent light) that many of the other Drosera had a hard time handling. The D. binata I had with it never opened its' leaves. They dried up at the end of the stem instead. The D. cistiflora however did just fine. It had dew on the leaves and grew very tall, over 14" at last measurement and still growing. The rosette died completely and early, leaving just the stem and its' leaves. The stem, however, is weak. Possibly due to inadequate light. The Florescent is 14" from the top of the pot, and the plant is scrambling amongst the other plants. It held itself upright until it was about 8" tall.
The plant outside didn't grow as tall, and the rosette lasted much longer, well into January. It survived cold temperatures as low as the high 20's at night, most of the time however, nights were in the 30's and 40's. Highs were in the upper 40's to low 60's. Frost was heavy in the front of the house, but the back seems to be protected enough so there was never any frost there. I never understood the physics of that. Perhaps the warmer water of the pond, surrounding trees and fence help. I gave in on my experiment to find the plants limits and covered them with white plastic on most of the coldest nights, but unfortunately, not all. The coldest nights finally appeared to do some damage. The two buds turned black. The plant continues to slowly grow though.
It doesn't get a lot of sun, just a few hours a day at best. That might have affected the height of the plant as much as the cooler temperatures.
Winter 2001/2002 update:The smaller cistiflora had gone almost unnoticed because it had a rosette perhaps half the size, and had not sent up a stem until very late, started really growing in the February/March timeframe. It's stem fell over in the wind, but it kept raising the new growth up. It finally put out some beautiful blooms in early and mid May. This plant was from the same batch of seeds, but was grown in a peat sand mixture. This plant got more sun as spring crept up. In May it was getting about 6 hours. In January, it was getting perhaps 3 hours.
The larger plant started to grow a number of new stems at the base in April, but they died without really taking off. I wish I had tried to root them. Perhaps this occurred because it lost it's buds. I also wonder if topping it off early in the growing season would stimulate multiple stems. They next time I have a few plants I'll try it.
Winter 2002/2003 Well, the big indoor cistiflora did not return this year. The literature says that they typically die after they bloom, at least in cultivation. However, one of the bog cistiflora came back this year. I do not believe it is from seed as the plant is growing in the precise position of the bog plant last year, it seems too big for a seedling, and I am pretty sure the flowers never went to seed. This might be the plant that lost it's flowers last year and never bloomed. I am taking cuttings and hope some will root.
To see more picture and text go to my South African Drosera Page
is not far away, although it seldom comes all the way to us. Dry is again relative. It's much more humid than the desert, but not as humid as the east coast in summer. The relative humidity high is almost always in the 80% or 90% range at night, and the lows are in the 20's% to 50% range during the day. The average is 30% to 60%.
None of my plants have been subjected to one of our severe freezes yet, so I don't know their downward limits, but I am amazed by what they will take. I don't think they have suffered through anything below 25-28 degrees F.
For detailed information on weather here, go tohttp://www.cimis.water.ca.gov/. You will get more than you could ever know what to do with. You will have to register, but it is free. Go to the reports section after registering. Put in an area code of 95139 or use the Morgan Hill data. That is probably closest to where I am.
Another View
Recently someone on the CP listserve asked about growing these plants. I mentioned my recommendation, but a friend of mine, Phil Faulisi, posted a very eloquent and somewhat different view. Phil is a FANTASTIC grower, so his opinion holds a lot of credibility with me. My methods have been working for me, but his might be better, and I plan on trying them. Click here for his recommendations!
