Roundleaf sundew – Drosera rotundifolia
The leaves, coated with a secretion, sparkle seductively like dewdrops in the sun. This attracts insects like magic – and before you know it, they are trapped. If they land on the sundew, they stick to the leaves. This is how the fascinating plant, which has a special healing effect for us humans, gets its nutrients.
Insect trap with healing powers
Fields of application
The active ingredients in sundew include naphthoquinone derivatives, flavonoids and enzymes. Conventional medicine uses tinctures and fluid extracts of sundew to treat coughs, particularly dry coughs and whooping cough in children. Asthmatics confirm that sundew can effectively reduce asthma attacks. Its main active ingredients also have an antispasmodic effect, which is why it is used to treat gastrointestinal complaints associated with spasmodic pain. In homeopathy, the medicinal plant with the Latin name Drosera is successfully used to treat dry, whooping and spasmodic coughs.
Botanical characteristics
The self-sufficient plant, which requires a lot of light, avoids lime and needs wet locations such as damp heaths and ditch edges or damp to wet peat and sandy soils and hummocks of raised and transition bogs. The round-leaved sundew is an endangered species in Central Europe and is therefore protected. The plant is a carnivorous plant; its long-stemmed leaves excrete a secretion that attracts and traps small insects, which it then decomposes. The sundew flowers from July to August and the herb is used as a medicinal drug.