|
|
| Photo
by Renee Brecht |
Britton and Brown. See
credits below.** |
| Botanical name: |
Utricularia cornuta Michx. |
| Common
name: |
horned bladderwort |
| Synonomy: |
Stomoisia cornuta (Michx.) Raf. |
| Group: |
dicot |
| Family: |
Lentibulariaceae |
| Growth
Type: |
forb/herb |
| Duration: |
perennial |
| Origin: |
native |
| Plant
height: |
2-12" |
| Foliage: |
leaves are tiny and threadlike, underground and not usually seen.
Tiny
bladders originally thought to float the plant actually trap and digest
very small invertebrates, opening when trigger hairs are disturbed and
suddenly sucking in water and any invertebrates (i.e., they are
carnivorous). Digestion takes approxiamately 15 minutes to 2 hours. The
"bug soup" is then extracted into the stem, clearing out the bladder's
vaccuum and resetting the trigger hairs.
Mary Treat of Vineland, an early female scientist, did much research on Utricularia and
was one of the first scientists to suspect that the bladders were
actually traps for tiny creatures rather than air flotation devices. |
| Flower
color: |
yellow, resembling a snapdragon |
| Flower
size: |
1/2" |
| Flowering/fruiting time |
late June to late August |
| Habitat: |
wet, sandy or peaty ground of bogs, depressions |
| Range
in
New Jersey: |
throughout the pine barrens, and local in the north Delaware Valley |
| Heritage ranking if any: |
n/a |
| Distribution: |
 |
| Misc.: |
Witmer Stone, 1910 describes Utricularia as "particularly characteristic of the New Jersey pine barren bogs." (689)
Utricularia, Latin, "raft floated on bladders", cornuta, Latin, "horned", referring to the spur on the flower. |
|
|
Not sure what a word means? Use Answers.com:
|
|
Sources
**USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. Vol. 3: 232. |
|
