Drosera Kenneallyi

Drosera kenneallyi –

is a perennial carnivorous plant that grows on sandy loam and sandyclayey soils containing laterite on grasslands, the margins found 3.1-mile radius around the Mitchell Plateau Airfield, woods of eucalyptus and malaleuca in Airfield Swamp, Mitchell Plateau, and Theda Station of Western Australia, and Fog Bay of the Northern Territory. The D. kenneallyi type found at Airfield Swamp shows an amazing unique adaptation to high water levels during during the months of January and February where flooding is prevalent. The plants there are submerged in high-temperature water, but the petioles are flexible and follow the rise and fall of the water level. The lamina float on the surface and continue to catch insects.

Its long narrow oblanceolate petioles are arranged in a compact basal rosette that lay flat against the soil and can range in color from bronze-green to red-bronze to orange. They are hairless on the upper surface and covered with a few non-dendric hairs on the lower surface. The lamina are typically red and transversely elliptical to broadly ovate in shape.

Inflorescences are 5–8 inches long with white flowers being produced on 10-20 flowered racemes.

Drosera kenneallyi is common within a 3.1-mile radius around the Mitchell Plateau Airfield in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. It was first observed and collected in 1982 by Kevin F. Kenneally, for whom this species is named. The species was formally described as a species in a 1996 issue of Nuytsia, the journal of the Western Australian Herbarium. It was then recognized as a species from the other members of Drosera subgenus Lasiocephala. D. kenneallyi can be distinguished from D. falconeri by its noticeably smaller leaves and shorter inflorescence, but the two species share many characteristics.

Natural hybrids of D. dilatato-petiolaris and D. darwinensis have been discovered in the Northern Territory and hybrids with D. aff. brevicornis are to be found in the Kimberly region of Western Australia