Confusion- D. dielsiana or D. natalensis?

[CPlantaholic]

After talking with Christian Dietz, he informed me that most D. dielsiana in cultivation are actually D. natalensis, so I was curious if anyone had ideas as to what my plants can be classified as. I know Tamlin was researching this a while back, so I'm hoping he can shed some light on this. If you have pictures that you wish to id. feel free to add them to this thread, and maybe we can make some comparisons. I would love to see a combination of flower and seed shots along with your "Dielsiana" plant picture since Tamlin has mentioned how diagnostic the seed can be for each species.

Below are my shots of my currently labeled D. dielsiana, and I have included pics of my D. venusta "coccicaulis" flower and seed for comparison, since it's a member of the Natalensis complex.

What I currently have labeled as D. dielsiana:

flower

seed

As you can see, the seed looks more "round" and is a bit larger than D. capensis, but you can check the pics below to see how much larger the seeds are than D. venusta.


D. venusta

flower
Here's a comparison to seed from my D. venusta "coccicaulis"

seeds

seeds

 

[Not a Number]

Looks like Drosera dielsiana from the seeds: "seeds ovoid, 0.4 mm. black, honeycombed"

vs

"seed fusiform, the testa extended on both sides"

No 5 in the following is D. dielsiana, no. 6 is D. natalensis:
http://www.omnisterra.com/botany/cp/pictures/drosera/pics/0075.gif

http://www.omnisterra.com/botany/cp/pictures/drosera/0075.htm

D. natalensis and D. venusta are considered synonyms for the same species.

 

[CPlantaholic]

Thanks for the link, NaN. That's too bad the leaves don't match up too. However, I've found this species has variable leaf shapes depending on whether it is fed or gets too little light. So at one time, it had leaves that looked similar to the Dielsiana leaf on that diagram, but now they seem to look more like the Natalensis than Dielsiana. However, the seed is pretty convincing to me.

 

[CPlantaholic]

Well, now Christian has responded on CPUK and thinks it is D. natalensis after all:
Quote:
"for me, the first plant is rather D. natalensis than D. dielsiana as it has fusiform seeds and divided styles. -Christian "

So I may have to change the labels afterall...

 

[Not a Number]

Well he has more experience with these species then me. They do look somewhat fusiform but lack the testa on both sides. Look at them under high magnification to see if they are honeycombed.

Maybe they're hybrids.

 

[CPlantaholic]

Yeah, I was almost wondering that, NaN. It could be that someone really wanted to confuse people, and made a hybrid of 2 very similar-looking plants, lol.