Utricularia (utrikularia)

[NL. (Linnseus, 1737), some of them widely distributed over the world. Their characteristic habit is that of elongated floating rootle stems, clothed with close whorls of capillary and repeatedly forking green leaves, by some considered as branches, in most cases elegantly di ected and fringe-like. These become ma ed together at the apex into a small, bright green roundish ball or winter-bud. The flowers are solitary or racemed, two-lipped, strongly personate and spurred, usually yellow, and borne on mostly naked scapes projecting from the water; they resemble otherwise those of the other personate orders, but have a globose free central placenta, like the Primulaceæ. Most species produce great numbers of small, obliquely ovoid bladders, formed of a thin, delicate membrane, opening at the smaller end by a very elastic valvular lid, and covered within by projecting quadrifid proce es, serving as absorbent organs, and each composed of four divergent arms mounted on a short pedicel. The bladders serve, like various appendages in other insectivorous plants, for the absorption of soft animal matter, forming traps for minute water-insects, larvæ, entomostracans, and tardigrades. Other species are terrestrial, growing upon moist earth, and often bearing a rosette of linear or spatulate bottle. They may be leathern-bottle-shaped ( utriform ). Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., XLV. iii. 566.