(LEX 18) — The Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves announced the discovery of a new carnivorous plant native to Kentucky, the Round-leaved Sundew, also known as Drosera rotundifolia.
According to OKNP, two of their botanists, Devin Rodgers and Toby Shaya, discovered the first known population of the species in Kentucky while monitoring another species.
OKNP says the plant was found in a remote gorge in the Cumberland Plateau, hanging from a cliff above a stream in sandstone bedrock.
The plant can get nutrients from insects that get trapped in the sticky glands that cover the leaves.
According to OKNP, the species is throughout the northern hemisphere and more abundant in central Ohio, as well as the mountains in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
OKNP says that with only one known population, the plant ranks S1 and a status of endangered at the state level.
