New carnivorous plant discovered in Bavaria

Munich, 16.12.2025 – A new carnivorous plant from Bavaria has now been officially named Drosera × bavarica, the Bavarian sundew. SNSB botanist Andreas Fleischmann discovered specimens of the new plant—a natural hybrid—collected in a southern Bavarian bog in the heritage of a Munich plant collector.

It is a fortunate coincidence: New discoveries to the flora of Central Europe, Germany or Bavaria are extremely rare. The new species is a carnivorous plant that has now been given the scientific name Drosera × bavarica, the Bavarian sundew. Strictly speaking, it is not a distinct new plant species, but a so-called natural hybrid, i.e., a spontaneously occurring natural cross between two species—in this case, the Long-leaved Sundew (Drosera anglica) and the Intermediate Sundew (Drosera intermedia). Until now, specimens of this plant had not been found in the wild, neither in herbaria nor on photographs or observation records. Cultivation experiments in Japan in 1973 proved that this cross between the two species is possible – artificially created in cultivation. But no one had ever found the hybrid in the wild.

Now, curator Dr. Andreas Fleischmann, an expert on carnivorous plants at the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB), has actually found several specimens of this plant – in the herbarium of Munich collector Paul Debbert (1934–2022). Debbert’s collection was donated to the Bavarian State Collection for Botany (SNSB-BSM) after his death. He was formerly a research assistant at the Institute of Systematic Botany at LMU Munich and left behind hundreds of pressed and documented carnivorous plants from all over the world, including several sundew specimens from Bavaria. While sifting through the collection, Fleischmann came across the first documented wild-collected specimens of the hybrid between Drosera anglica and Drosera intermedia, found by Paul Debbert over 30 years ago in a bog in southern Bavaria. The botanist was aware of the uniqueness of the find and had already labelled this plant on his herbarium sheets with the new name he had chosen, “Drosera × bavarica.” Unfortunately, Debbert did not manage to scientifically describe the newly discovered plant hybrid before his death. He is now being posthumously honoured for this achievement. Andreas Fleischmann examined and described the plant based on the available herbarium material and has now officially given it the scientific name initially proposed by Paul Debbert, Drosera ×bavarica – the Bavarian sundew. The new sundew natural hybrid was published in a comprehensive study on the genus Drosera in Bavaria in the current issue of the journal Berichte der Bayerischen Botanischen Gesellschaft, published by the Bavarian Botanical Society (BBG e.V.). The type specimens of three out of the six sundew taxa found in Europe are housed at the Munich herbarium.

Scientific Contact
PD Dr. Andreas Fleischmann, Curator of Vascular Plants
SNSB – Botanische Staatssammlung München
Menzinger Straße 67, 80638 München
Tel: 089 17861 240
E-Mail: fleischmann@snsb.de

Publication:
Fleischmann, A. (2025): Die Gattung Drosera (Sonnentau) in Bayern. Berichte der Bayerischen Botanischen Gesellschaft 94/95: 49-89.