Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Insectivorous perennial herbs, terrestrial or rarely aquatic, primarily fibrous–rooted.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Often in a rosette, alternate or rarely whorled. The blade either an active trap that closes when touched or covered with mucilage–tipped tentacle hairs that contain irritable compounds to which insects adhere. Petiolate. Stipules present or absent.

Flowers: Flowers usually in helicoid cymes, rarely racemose or solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx of (4)5(–8) sepals; sepals ± connate at base, imbricate. Petals as many as sepals, distinct, convolute. Stamens (4)5(10–20), distinct or connate at base; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Pollen shed in tetrads.

Fruit: Loculicidal capsules; rarely indehiscent. Seeds with a short; straight; basal embryo embedded in starchy endosperm.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: