Utricularia cecilii is a small annual

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

 that belongs to the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Utricularia. It is endemic to an area around Mangalore

Mangalore

Mangalore is the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located about west of the state capital, Bangalore. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges, and is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in south western...

 in Karnataka

Karnataka

Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...

 state and is only known from the type location

Biological type

In biology, a type is one particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached...

 and one other collection from the same region. U. cecilii grows as a terrestrial plant in damp, shallow soils over laterite

Laterite

Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...

. It flowers in August and September. U. cecilii was originally described and published by Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor (botanist)

Peter Geoffrey Taylor was a British botanist who worked at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew throughout his career in botany. Taylor was born in 1926 and joined the staff of the herbarium at Kew in 1948. He published his first new species, Utricularia pentadactyla, in 1954...

in 1984. This species is named in honor of Father Cecil Saldanha S.J., who had shown Taylor this species in 1981.