SUNDEW
Drosera rotundifolia
COMMON NAMES: Round leaf, sundew, flytrap, dew-plant.
FEATURES: Drosera is a genus of carnivorous plants with ninety species throughout the world. Drosera
rotundifolia is common in North America in damp, sandy soil near bogs from Labrador to Florida,
Alaska to California; sometimes so abundant the dew-beds are aglow with glistening red.
The fibrous black rootlets are reddish inside. The leaves are round on long stems extending from the
root; the top side of each leaf bears as many as two hundred red tentacles, each tipped with a gland
exuding an exceedingly sticky drop of fluid. The flat little rosette of spatulate leaves is formed around a
dainty white flower on a stem 1–2 inches tall. The tentacles are expanded until the pressure of a small
insect’s body, held by the sticky drops, causes them to bend over the prey, enclosing it in a sort of
stomach. Digestive juices, analogous to pepsin, are excreted, and the insect is dissolved and absorbed.
MEDICINAL PART: The whole herb.
SOLVENT: Boiling water.
BODILY INFLUENCE: Stimulant, expectorant, demulcent, antispasmodic.
USES: In the conditions for which sundew is used it is almost as if the dewdrops are quenching the dry
and tickling condition of the respiratory organs. Considered a prophylactic (prevents the spread of
disease) in whooping cough, and controls the spasms and characteristic coughs; also indicated in
laryngitis, for tobacco cough, some types of asthma, chronic bronchitis, and catarrh, when attended with
dryness of the mucous membranes and irritable states of the nervous system. Excellent in the early stages
of consumption when attended with a harassing cough without expectoration.
S. Clymer gives us a formula that proves very effective:
Tincture of sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), 2–5 drops
Tincture of queen’s root (Stillingia sylvatica), 1–40 drops
Tincture of passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), 3–10 drops