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A large flowered form of the species that comes true from seed. In 2004 Stephen Morley wrote in the Carnivorous Plant Society Journal: "I spent several of my teenage years in South Africa. This is where I was first introduced to carnivorous plants and was extremely lucky to experience some of the native South African species in the wild. In December 1984 I made a trip down to the Western Cape Province to stay with a friend who lived in a house in Betty's Bay, near Hermanus, to the east of False Bay. The property enclosure included a small section of ‘fynbos’ vegetation which ran down to a stream, with the property itself being less than a kilometre from the sea and an estimated 5-10 metres above sea level. Near the stream, in amongst some rushy vegetation and Zantedeschia aethiopica, (...) some flowers and seed heads of what I guessed were Utricularia . I returned to the UK in June 1985, and with me the unknown Utricularia. I showed the plant to Martin Cheek, now a taxonomic botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, but then a PhD student at Oxford with an interest in Utricularia taxonomy. He was very interested in the plant, but was not sure of the species, so took a sample to show Peter Taylor, renowned Utricularia taxonomist at Kew and author of 'The Genus Utricularia' taxonomic monograph. Peter subsequently identified the plant as a specimen of Utricularia bisquamata, an unusually large-flowered and colourful form but still within the range of flower sizes for the species which can be very variable. Both Martin and I distributed the plant amongst various growers in the carnivorous plant community in the UK, and it has since become very widespread in collections throughout the UK and now other parts of the world. " |
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| 15th September 2005 | ||
