Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Pinguicula lutea Walter
- Family: Bladderwort (Lentibulariaceae)
- Flowering: April-May
- Field Marks: Butterworts are distinguished by their basal rosettes of rather fleshy leaves and their 5-parted, 2-lipped, solitary flowers with 2 stamens. This species differs from other butterworts by its yellow flowers that are at least 3/4 inch across.
- Habitat: Low pinelands, flatwoods, bogs, savannas, wet ditches.
- Habit: Perennial herb with shallow roots.
- Stems: Upright, glandular-hairy, leafless, usually no more than 1 foot tall, bearing a single flower at the tip.
- Leaves: All clustered in a basal rosette, ovate to oblong, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, rather fleshy, toothless but with the edges rolled upward, glandular-hairy on the upper surface, ciliate along the edges near the base, up to 3 inches long, up to 1 inch wide.
- Flowers: Solitary at the tip of the stem, at least 3/4 inch across.
- Sepals: 5, 2-lipped, united at the base, glandular-hairy, green, up to 1/3 inch long.
- Petals: 5, 2-lipped, united below, the lobes yellow, up to 1/2 inch long, the tube greenish yellow, up to 1 3/4 inches long; one of the petals with a slender spur up to 1/2 inch long.
- Stamens: 2, attached to the base of the corolla tube.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules spherical, up to 1/3 inch in diameter; seeds numerous, yellow, oblong, minute.
- Notes: This species, like all butterworts, traps small insects on its leaves by means of glandular hairs. The plant then digests the softer parts of the insect.
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