Herbs perennial or annual, mostly terrestrial or rarely aquatic, carnivorous. Stem with much reduced leaf blades that function as rhizoids below ground, with or without tubers or rhizomes. Leaves basal and rosulate, or alternate, rarely whorled, stipulate or exstipulate; leaf blade with sticky, glandular hairs, or with sensitive hairs that trigger closing of blade to trap small animals, juvenile leaf blade circinate. Flowers axillary, lateral or terminal, usually borne in a cincinnus, rarely in a raceme or solitary, bisexual, actinomorphic, 4- or 5-merous. Sepals 4 or 5(or 6-8), persistent. Petals as many as sepals or more. Stamens 4 or 5, hypogynous, free, alternate with petals; anthers 2-loculed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior or nearly so, globose or ovoid, 2-5-carpellate, 1-3-loculed; placentation parietal or basal; styles (2 or )3-5(or 6), simple or branched; stigma simple or multifid. Fruit a capsule, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seeds few to numerous; endosperm fleshy; embryo straight.

Ruan Yun-zhen. 1984. Droseraceae. In: Fu Shu-hsia & Fu Kun-tsun, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 34(1): 14-30.

Four genera and more than 100 species: temperate and tropical regions of both hemispheres; two genera and seven species (one endemic) in China.

(Authors: Lu Lianli (Lou Lian-li); Katsuhiko Kondo)