Forms: see SUN sb. and DEW sb. [ad. early mod.Du. son-, sundauw, = G. sonnentau, transl. of L. rōs sōlis (see ROS SOLIS).
It has been suggested that OE. sundéaw (glossing ‘rosmarina’) is for sunddéaw, i.e., ‘sea-dew,’ a literal rendering of L. rōsmarīnus.]
Any plant of the genus Drosera, which comprises small herbs growing in bogs, with leaves covered with glandular hairs secreting viscid drops which glitter in the sun like dew; esp. D. rotundifolia (round-leaved or common sundew).
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, III. lxxi. 412. Although that the Sonne do shine hoate … thereon, yet you shall finde it alwayes moyst … and for that cause it was called Ros Solis in Latine, whiche is to say in Englishe The dewe of the Sonne, or Sonnedewe.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, III. clv. 1366. It is called in English Sunne deaw, Ros Solis, Youth woort: in the North parts Red rot, bicause it rotteth sheepe, and in Yorkeshire Moore grasse.
1698. Phil. Trans., XX. 328. Hairs like those on the Leaves of Sundew.
1757. A. Cooper, Distiller, III. l. (1760), 215. The Ros-Solis or Sundew, from whence this Cordial water has its name.
1840. Hodgson, Hist. Northumb., III. II. 360/2. Drosera anglica, Greater Sundew.
1870. Kingsley, At Last, xii. The long-leaved Sundew, with its clammy-haired paws full of dead flies.
a. 1887. R. Jefferies, Field & Hedgerow (1889), 275. The ‘sog,’ or peaty place where the spring rises, and where the sundew grows.
attrib. 1837. Partington’s Brit. Cycl. Nat. Hist., II. 330/1. Droseraceæ, the Sundew family.
1887. Bentley, Man. Bot. (ed. 5), 550. The Sundew Order.
