Habit: Carnivorous by bladders (here treated as modified leaves), into which small organisms are sucked when hairs at opening are triggered [epiphytic].
Stem: submersed or subterranean shoots [rarely caudex]; some aquatic species produce 2 kinds of stems, green (in water or at surface; leaves with flattened or thread-like segments; bladders 0--few) and white (generally buried in substrate; leaves 0; bladders many), the latter not always present in poor collections.
Leaf: simple or generally dissected into narrow segments, alternate on stolon, margins often with bristles (visible at 10--30×).
Inflorescence: raceme or 1-flowered, emergent; scape slender or wiry, bracts present.
Flower: calyx lips 2[4], unlobed; corolla yellow [or not], with red-brown streaks or not, upper lip +- entire, lower entire or 3-lobed, spurred; rarely cleistogamous.
Fruit: capsule.
Species In Genus: +- 220 species: worldwide, especially tropics, Australia.
Etymology: (Latin: little bag, from bladders)
Note: Size variable, often unreliable for identification; distinction between stems, leaves uncertain. Glands inside bladders consist of 2 pairs of oppositely directed arms, angles of divergence between which used (at 150× or more) to identify fresh or pressed specimens.
Jepson eFlora Author: Barry A. Rice
Reference: Taylor 1989 Kew Bull Add Ser 14:1--724
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Utricularia
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