Hello don555,

I can only comment that many of your plants look quite young. If that is their adult growth, then many are not Cape sundews, rather, might be hybrids with D. spatulata or other round leaf sundews. If they are all Cape sundews, wait for them to grow up completely before IDing them.

The all red should posses narrow deep red leaves and petioles, but only when grown in very strong light, like full sun outside or under very strong indoor lights (I would think lumen levels over 12000 would do the trick).

The thing to look for would be differences between the narrow leaf and typical forms when they reach full growth. The narrow leaf is about 5 inches across and produces smaller narrow trap surfaces about 1- 1 1/2 inches long. The broad leaf typical form produces leaves that measure up to about 2 inches long or longer with petioles the same length, making a plant about 6-8 inches across in full maturity. The broad leaf also has wider leaves and grows up a stalk after a few months of maturity, so will eventually look something like a tiny palm tree if you do not repot it deeper or clip the top off for division (you can clip off the entire top and the roots will regrow new plantlets and the top can be planted for growing roots of its own).

The white cultivar is never going to produce any red tentacles or coloring at all.

As far as I know, all Cape sundews grow like weeds, so there might be a difference in seed quality due to age or other considerations. We never know how long someone has had a bunch of seeds sitting around in the fridge before they send them to the seed bank... and we never know if they even labelled the seeds correctly. I would expect a hybrid to grow somewhat slower and smaller than the parent D. capensis.

This is a typical variety Broad Leaf Cape sundew in a five inch pot. note how its leaves outgrow the edges of the pot by a couple inches. It is young, so the palm tree appearance has not yet occurred.

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Albino:

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Red:

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Typical:

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hi Don nice plants ! I was curious .. Compaired to Capensis Albino .And Capensis Typical Red . What is the diffrental in size between the 2 ? I have one of each . How ever these are only plantlets yet . And hard to tell at this rate . And I am aloso looking into getting seeds of All red and wide leave var, ty

Thanks for the replies. Very interesting... my plants seem puny compared to the other pics posted. My plants are almost 3 years old, which should be ample time to mature, so they are probably just stunted for some reason. I've never fed them so that might play a partial role, but I suspect the main factor is that they aren't getting nearly enough light. They are grown under a 4-40W fluorescent "shop-light" setup in my basement. The plants are in aquariums to maintain moisture, but this means the lights are about 25 cm (10") from the top of the plants. Well, I'm guessing this is the problem.

Sounds like I can't tell if the red leaf D.capensis is really a red leaf unless I can provide a lot more light to see if it develops the red colour or not. My albino would seem to not be a real albino, as mine has red tentacles.

I guess I should get some of these outdoors next summer to see what they can really do.

Thanks again,
-Don