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Other than in Sri Lanka this carnivorous plant is found in India, Myanmar, Thailand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia (Borneo, Celebes, N. Guin., Java), Papua New Guinea, Palau, N & E Australia.  It is able trap varying types of insects. The plants of this genus are commonly referred to as sundews. Watassa is one of the fastest trapping sundews.  Its leaves can curl around an insect in only a few seconds, compared to the minutes or hours it takes other sundews to surround their prey. It is a herb that produces very short stems and leaves in a rosette. These plants grow only in sandy grounds depleted of nutrients where not many other species of plants will grow along with them. This enables the sparkling droplets of the leaves to stand out for attracting the insect prey. 
The conservation status of the species under reference is regarded as Vulnerable (National Red List 2012).
This plant can be found in the both wet and dry zone parts and also in the cloud forests. It is common at Horton plains National park as well as at Marshlands such as Bellanwila Attidiya close to Colombo. However it will only grow in localities where the soil is depleted of nutrients due to seepage and where the availability of nitrogen is almost no existent.

In Wilpattu even though I have observed the plants during the months of December and January the flowers were only observed in February. They grow in open areas around villus such as Kokkare Villu, Mahapatessa and Kudapatessa after the carpets of Kok Mota has died up where upon the surface of the ground becomes more exposed favouring these plants to attract their insect prey.