Drosera subhirtella, the sunny rainbow, is a scrambling or climbing perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 tuber

Tuber

Tubers are various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients. They are used by plants to survive the winter or dry months and provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season and they are a means of asexual reproduction...

ous species in the carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

 genus Drosera. It is endemic to Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 and is found in sandplains, granite outcrops

Granite outcrops of Western Australia

Granite outcrops of Western Australia are inselbergs and monoliths made from granite that are found across much of Western Australia. Rising abruptly from the surrounding landscape they create a variety of microhabitats for plants, and provide seasonal resources and refuge for a range of animals....

, and swamp margins in sand, clay, and loam

Loam

Loam is soil composed of sand, silt, and clay in relatively even concentration . Loam soils generally contain more nutrients and humus than sandy soils, have better infiltration and drainage than silty soils, and are easier to till than clay soils...

 soils. D. subhirtella produces small carnivorous leaves along stems that can be 40 cm (16 in) high. Yellow flowers bloom from August to October.

Drosera subhirtella was first described by Jules Émile Planchon

Jules Émile Planchon

Jules Émile Planchon was a French botanist born in Ganges, Hérault.-Biography:After receiving his Doctorate of Science at the University of Montpellier in 1844, he worked for a while at the Royal Botanical Gardens in London, and for a few years was a teacher in Nancy and Ghent...

 in 1848. A new variety of D. subhirtella, var. moorei, was described by Ludwig Diels

Ludwig Diels

Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels , was a German botanist.Diels was born in Hamburg, the son of the classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels. From 1900 to 1902 he traveled together with Ernst Pritzel through South Africa, Java, Australia and New Zealand. Shortly before the first world war he...

 in his 1906 monograph on the Droseraceae

Droseraceae

Droseraceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. The family is also known under its common name, the sundew family.It consists of carnivorous plants: besides the sundews, the genus Drosera, it also contains the even more-famous Venus fly trap Dionaea muscipula...

. In 1982, N. G. Marchant

N. G. Marchant

Neville Graeme Marchant is a retired Western Australian botanist. He was formerly the Director of the Western Australian Herbarium.Marchant began working for the Western Australian Herbarium at the age of 15, as a laboratory assistant to Government Botanist Charles Gardner. Later he attended the...

 changed the variety to a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 and there the taxon

Taxon

|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...

 stood until Allen Lowrie

Allen Lowrie

Allen Lowrie is a West Australian botanist. He is living in Duncraig, a Perth suburb, is married and has two daughters.Lowrie, originally a businessman and inventor, got in contact with the carnivorous flora of western Australia in the late sixties and worked on it as an amateur...

 elevated it to species rank at D. moorei

Drosera moorei

Drosera moorei is a scrambling or climbing perennial tuberous species in the carnivorous plant genus Drosera. It is endemic to Western Australia and grows near granite outcrops in sandy loam. D. moorei produces small, circular, peltate carnivorous leaves along glabrous stems that can be long...

in 1999.