Utricularia stellaris L. fil.

An annual or perennial, suspended, aquatic plant with terete and sparsely branched filiform stems. Leaves are numerous and divided from the base into 3–6 segments. Inflorescence is a scape bearing 5–12 flowers with white or pale mauve corolla, rarely yellow with purple nerves. Fruit is a globose capsule that contains 4–6-angled seeds.

Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Delta).

North, tropical and South Africa, Madagascar, India.

Rice fields, ditches, pools.

Annual or perennial.

Height: 20-50(-80) cm.

Old World tropics from W. Africa to Queensland but apparently absent from Malaysia.

stellaris: star-shaped

Aquatic canivorous herb. Stolons up to 1 m × 2.5 mm, internodes 5-20 mm. Leaves numerous, digitately divided into 3-6 primary segments, 1-6 cm long, repeatedly forked again into filiform segments. Traps numerous on the ultimate and penultimate leaf segment, broadly ovoid, shortly stalked, 1-3 mm long. A whorl of inflated floating leaves present on the upper half of the inflorescence peduncle, 0.5-20 mm long, ellipsoid, 2-4 times as long as wide, with a few reduced leaf-segments at the apex. Inflorescence 3-30 cm long, 2-16-flowered. Corolla 2-lipped, 7-10 mm long, yellow, often with reddish lines on the palate; upper lip broadly ovate, 1.5-2 times as long as the upper calyx lobe; spur cylindrical, more or less as long as the lower lip. Fruit a globose capsule, c.5 mm in diameter.

Widespread in Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius and Comoro Islands, India to Vietnam and northern Australia.

Utricularia stellaris is a medium to large sized suspended aquatic carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. U. stellaris is native to Africa, tropical Asia, and northern Australia.