Ivydene Gardens Box to Crowberry Wild Flower Families Gallery:
Butterwort Family

Click on Underlined Text in:-

Common Name to view that Plant Description Page
Botanical Name to link to Plant or Seed Supplier
Flowering Months to view photos
Habitat to view further Natural Habitat details and Botanical Society of the British Isles Distribution Map

Butterwort Family:-

Butterwort Family plant table with its Common Name - Botanical Name. Flowering Months Range. Habitat with link to that Wild Flower Gallery:-

Common Name

Botanical Name

Flowering Months

Habitat

Common Butterwort

Pinguicula vulgaris

May-June

A rosette-forming, insectivorous perennial herb of damp, nutrient-poor habitats, overwintering as a rootless bud. It is found in bogs, in crevices of irrigated rocks and rock ledges, in base-poor as well as base-rich open flushes, and in open bryophyte-dominated communities in fens. 0-970 m (Beinn Heasgarnich, Mid Perth).

Flower

Flowers

Foliage

Form from Allt Nan Uamp in Suthrland on 17 June

Giant Butterwort

Pinguicula grandiflora

May-June

A rosette-forming, insectivorous perennial herb, overwintering as a rootless bud which also functions as a vegetative propagule. It is found on wet rocks, flushed moorland and acidic bogs. 0-855 m (Macgillycuddy`s Reeks, S. Kerry).

Flower

Flowers

Foliage

Form on rock-face in Kerry

Greater Bladderwort

Utricularia vulgaris

June-August

This is found in oligotrophic and mesotrophic, base-rich waters. Habitats include sheltered bays in limestone lakes, ponds, ditches and pools in calcareous fens and grazing marshes, and flooded clay-, marl-, and gravel-pits. Flowering is temperature dependent, variable annually, and less frequent in the north of its range. Generally lowland, but upper altitudinal limit unknown.

Flower from Wareham on 10 August

Flowers

Foliage from Wareham on 10 August

Form

Irish Bladderwort

Utricularia intermedia

June-August

Perennial, insectivorous herbs, most frequent in shallow, oligotrophic water in acidic and peaty sites, though also occurring in calcareous sites. They rarely flower, and reproduction is mainly by turions.

Flower

Flowers from Kesslegg on 18 July

Foliage on 18 July

Form on 18 July

Pale Butterwort

Pinguicula lusitanica

July onwards

An insectivorous perennial herb which retains its insect-trapping leaves through the winter. It grows on damp bare peat and at the bases of grass, rush or sedge tussocks beside moorland rills, drainage ditches on former bogs, acidic flushes and wet heaths, often in places trampled by livestock or deer. 0-490 m (Dartmoor, S. Devon, and the Mourne Mountains, Co. Down).

Flower from St Finans Bay in Kerry on 22 June

Flowers

Foliage from Loch Lurgainn on 4 August

Form from Loch Lurgainn on 4 August

Small Bladderwort

(Lesser Bladderwort)

Utricularia minor

June-September

A perennial herb of nutrient-poor, acidic, or sometimes base-rich, shallow water in bog pools and abandoned peat cuttings, at the edges of lakes amongst emergent vegetation, in ditches and small ponds, and in fens. 0-600 m (Haystacks Tarn, Cumberland), and possibly to 685 m in Scotland.

Flower from Isle of Purbeck in Dorset on 25 August

Flowers

Foliage

Form on 3 September

What is The Threatened Plants Database

"At its heart, the TPDB is a database about the 400-or- so rarest species in Britain, and was set up to enable the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to fulfil its statutory duties in protecting these plants and advising the UK government on conservation issues. It was originally compiled for the production of the third edition of the Red Data Book, which went on sale this month (April 1999), and it is now being run by the BSBI under a three-year contract to the JNCC and the country agencies.

As such, it is a very restricted set of biological records. On the other hand, in order to compile it, one needs to have an enormous amount of information available. For example, how would anyone know which plants were rare and which were common if they didn’t keep information on the common ones? So, in the long term, it is not sufficient to simply keep rare plant records. Instead we need to have access to a full set of information on all the British flora in order to be able to extract the particular data that we want. And, of course, that is precisely what the BSBI has been building up for over 150 years.

We have a strategy, therefore, to use the TPDB project to reach into every corner of the BSBI’s work and create an integrated network of information sources which can all send and receive biological records accurately and to uniform high standards. This sounds ambitious, but again it is just an extension of what we’ve all been doing for years. When someone gives a record to a vice county recorder, and the recorder goes out to check it, and then sends a pink card to the BRC, that is a typical example of data management. The only difference is that this process is now being done using computers and the internet.

While all this is happening, there are considerable benefits and spin-offs. It is becoming increasingly possible for ordinary people, with no special training or access to expensive equipment, to produce complex reports and analyses of botanical data. For example, a county checklist can take just minutes to produce. Distribution maps are available at the touch of a button. And there are many other things one can do with the data once you know how to use the software. We have an opportunity to develop this initiative over the next few years, and the plan is to do just that.

Of course not everyone in the BSBI will notice a great change to their everyday activities. This is not an imposed change on the way people work – it is an opportunity for those who wish to take advantage of it. In this newsletter some of those opportunities are explored, and examples are given of people who are involved in this work already. "

Carnivorous Plants - killers in the bog

With colourful, fluid-filled leaves, pungent scents, glistening glue or grasping tentacles, they lure their victims to a nasty end. Carnivorous plants are unique in that they attract, trap and derive benefit from digesting their prey, and they live right here in Ireland.

Anyone who has walked over a bog on a still, hot day will know what a paradise they are for insects, especially the biting sort. What you may not know is that bogs are full of plants that have turned the tables on the insect world and will capture, kill and eat every midge, bug and ant they can.

Wrong Answer:-

WIFE:
What would you do if I died? Would you get married again? 

HUSBAND: 
Definitely not! 

WIFE: 
Why not - don't you like being married? 

HUSBAND: 
Of course I do. 

WIFE: 
Then why wouldn't you remarry? 

HUSBAND: 
Okay, I'd get married again.. 

WIFE: 
You would? (With a hurtful look on her face). 

HUSBAND: 
(Makes audible groan). 

WIFE: 
Would you live in our house? 

HUSBAND: 
Sure, it's a great house. 

WIFE: 
Would you sleep with her in our bed? 

HUSBAND: 
Where else would we sleep? 

WIFE: 
Would you let her drive my car? 

HUSBAND: 
Probably, it is almost new. 

WIFE: 
Would you replace my pictures with hers? 

HUSBAND: 
That would seem like the proper thing to do. 

WIFE: 
Would she use my golf clubs? 

HUSBAND: 
No, she's left-handed. 

WIFE: 
- silence - - 

HUSBAND: 
F *** ....