The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Species

Utricularia sandersonii

Etymology

Utricularia: a small bladder

Common Name(s)

bladderwort

Authority

Utricularia sandersonii Oliv.

Family

Lentibulariaceae

Brief Description

Minute herb with wedge-shaped leaves around 1 cm long growing from underground parts, flower stalks much longer, usually around 10 cm long, with 1 to 4 pale mauve or white flowers with a distinct 2- lobed upper petal looking like rabbit ears to 1.5 cm long.

Flora Category

Vascular - Exotic

Structural Class

Dicotyledonous Herbs other than Composites

Distribution

Only known from one site on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Habitat

Seepage and trackside drain in regenerating manuka scrub.

Features

Small perennial, terrestrial. Rhizoids few, capillary, simple. Stolons many, up to 5.0 cm or greater long, 0.25 mm thick. Leaves numerous, lamina up to 15 × 6 mm, cuneate or obovate to flabellate, petiolate. Traps numerous on rhizoids, stolons, and leaves, 1-1.5 mm long, ovoid, stalked. Inflorescences 2-6 cm long, erect, solitary, simple; peduncle c. 0.6 mm diam., terete, glabrous. Bracts c. 1 mm long, basifixed, deltoid or oblong. Flowers 1-4, distant; pedicels 1.5-3 mm long, spreading in flower, deflexed in fruit; calyx 2 mm long; corolla 10-15 mm long, very pale mauve or white, with darker mauve markings, upper lip of corolla deeply divided with two divergent lobes, spur subulate 2-3 x longer than lower lip. Capsule c. 2 mm long, globose, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Apparently seed is not produced in naturalised populations.

Similar Taxa

No other so-called 'terrestrial' Utricularia species have the distinctive two lobed upper lip of the flower.

Flowering

Summer

Flower Colours

Purple,White

Fruiting

n/a

Year Naturalised

2003

Origin

South Africa

Reason for Introduction

Ornamental plant

Control Techniques

Not controlled in New Zealand.

Life Cycle and Dispersal

Deliberate planting and water borne dispersal of rhizome fragments

This page last updated on 21 Aug 2013