Tuberous organs in Utricularia, and new observations of sub-tuberous stolons on Utricularia radiata Small

Abstract

The genus Utricularia is confounding and bizarre. You are simply wrong if you think that the genus can be dismissed as a set of free-floating lake weeds, or stringy terrestrial species with tiny leaves. Many of its species produce mysterious, strange structures; the diversity of peculiar things exhibited by Utricularia species astonishes. The production of tubers is such an example—nearly twenty species of Utricularia are known to generate them. (Plant physiologists might argue whether all these structures are truly tubers in the technical sense.) The species that produce tubers are not particularly closely related to each other; Taylor (1989) notes that they occur in six separate sections (Aranella, Chelidon, Orchidioides, Phyllaria, Pleiochasia, Utricularia).

Phylogeny of the ‘orchid-like’ bladderworts (gen. Utricularia sect. Orchidioides and Iperua: Lentibulariaceae) with remarks on the stolon–tuber system

“…For example, U. menziesii has a dormancy period throughout the hot, dry Australian summer (Taylor, 1989). The tubers of this species may play an important role in carbohydrate storage (Rice, 2011), but further studies with histological analysis are necessary to prove this assumption. In this way, it is possible that the stolon-tuber system, with its primary function being water storage, originated independently (as homoplasies) within the genus Utricularia as an adaptation to the hydric deficits, with a common occurrence in the Orchidioides-Iperua complex.…”

A review of Japanese-native carnivorous plants

“…Further taxonomic research would be required.5 The southern limit is Yakushima (or Yaku Island) near Kyushu Island.6 As U. australis f. tenuicaulis inKameyama et al (2005).7 Komiya (2002) lists U. ochroleuca as a species, but I adopted the hypothesis that it is a group of natural hybrids between U. intermedia and U. minor(Böcher et al 1968 among many others), and therefore I treated U. ×bentensis Komiya as one of its synonyms Rice (2018). considers U.…”