Monsoon brings Maharashtra’s tiny carnivorous plants back to life on rocky plateaus
During the monsoon, Maharashtra’s hard lateritic plateaus transform. Rainwater gathers in shallow depressions, seasonal flowers spread, and among them appear plants so small they are easily missed — carnivorous plants that trap insects to survive.
Look closely at the leaves of a sundew and you will see tiny droplets catching the light like dew. Those glistening droplets are sticky traps.
They are locally known as Davbindu (dew drop) — Drosera burmanni, a tiny plant that hugs the ground — Gavti Davbindu — Drosera indica with slender, droplet-covered leaves — and Seetechi Aasave — Utricularia purpurascens, a bladderwort found around the famed Kaas Plateau in Satara.
These plants emerge every monsoon across Maharashtra’s high-altitude lateritic plateaus, locally called sadas, including Kaas, the Panchgani-Mahabaleshwar landscape and the northern Western Ghats.
During dry months, the surface appears as bare, iron-rich laterite rock with almost no vegetation. Come June, the monsoon collects in depressions. By August-September, the plateau bursts into flower.
The conditions are harsh: soil is extremely shallow, acidic and poor in nutrients. Botanists have found these plateaus are surprisingly rich. A 2012 study by Manoj M. Lekhak and Shrirang Yadav across 10 high-altitude sadas in southwestern Maharashtra recorded 356 herbaceous species, including 67 endemics.
A 2025 study by Gosavi, Mestry, Vyas and Patwardhan in the Journal of Threatened Taxa surveyed the Panchgani Tableland in Satara and recorded 189 plant species, with 78 endemic taxa. Carnivorous plants made up 4.7% of flora. It listed Utricularia albocaerulea as Vulnerable and Utricularia praeterita as Near Threatened.
How they trapThe sundew’s strategy starts with hair-like tentacles tipped with sticky mucilage that sparkles like dew — hence Davbindu. An insect lands, gets stuck, and the plant uses digestive enzymes to absorb nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur that the soil cannot provide.
The bladderwort uses a hidden trap. Its tiny bladder-like sacs create a vacuum suction mechanism that pulls in microscopic aquatic organisms when triggered.
Both are adaptations to the same problem: survival on nutrient-poor rock.A brief windowThe plateau follows a seasonal clock. Early rains bring orchids, August-September brings peak flowering of Eriocaulon and Utricularia, and as monsoon ends, grasses take over and the carnivorous plants disappear until next year.
Researchers warn this short life cycle makes the habitat easy to underestimate. A visitor in summer sees only rock. Tourism, grazing and soil disturbance can destroy the microhabitats — tiny patches of soil and seasonal pools — on which Davbindu and Seetechi Aasave depend.
The monsoon reveals what the dry landscape conceals: a highly seasonal ecosystem where even a spoonful of soil can support unusual life.
