of the most critically endangered Drosera species. While D. regia has not been evaluated under the current International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) standards for a rating on the Red List of Threatened Species, the International Carnivorous Plant Society recognised D. regia on their list of imperiled carnivorous plant species. Drosera regia was also listed as "rare" on an early IUCN report in 1997, but these earlier IUCN assessments were often poorly documented and are thus not relied upon today. Several other authors have identified how rare D. regia is in the wild, even calling it "threatened with extinction". The short-term prognosis for natural populations of D. regia was greatly improved when a fire swept through its habitat in 2015. A team from Stellenbosch Botanical Gardens found new populations in the lower elevation zone and rediscovered plants in the higher elevation zone. Taxonomy and botanical history Drosera regia was originally described by South African botanist Edith Layard Stephens in 1926. The binomial name Drosera regia is derived from the Greek word droseros, meaning "dew-covered" and the specific epithet regia comes from the Latin for "royal", a reference to what Stephens described as its "striking appearance". The genus is collectively referred to as the sundews, while Drosera regia is commonly referred to as the king sundew. Stephens was informed about this new species by Mr. J. Rennie, who had found several plants growing by a stream in the upper end of "Baviaans Kloof" on Easter in 1923. Additional specimens were located directly above this site on a plateau between South Ridge Peak and Observation Point. A second population was located in 1926 about away below the Slanghoek Peak near the headwaters of the Witte River. Stephens placed D. regia in section Psychophila Planch., which at that time included D. arcturi, D. stenopetala, and D. uniflora, though she noted that the many-flowered inflorescence was unusual for this group. In 1970, the South African botanist Anna Amelia Obermeyer suggested that D. regia did not fit into any of the taxonomic groups established by Ludwig Diels in his 1906 monograph on the family. Obermeyer noted the unusual characteristics that set D. regia apart from any other Drosera species: the operculate pollen, circinate leaf vernation, undivided styles, and woody rhizomes. In 1994, Rüdiger Seine and Wilhelm Barthlott proposed classifying D. regia as the sole species in a new subgenus, Drosera