Utricularia delphinioides
Encyclopedia
Utricularia delphinioides is a small to medium-sized, probably perennial
, carnivorous plant
that belongs to the genus
Utricularia. It is endemic to Indochina
and can be found in Cambodia
, Laos
, Thailand
, and Vietnam
. U. delphinioides grows as a terrestrial plant in swamps and rice fields, wet grasslands, or open pine forests at altitudes from near sea level to 1300 m (4,265 ft). It was originally named by Clovis Thorel but formally described and published by François Pellegrin in 1920. A variety, U. delphinioides var. minor, was also described in 1920, but Peter Taylor
reduced the variety to synonymy
under U. delphinioides because he discovered a continuous range of sizes between the larger and smaller forms, size being the only distinctive characteristic in the 1920 description of the variety.
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
, 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 Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
and can be found in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. U. delphinioides grows as a terrestrial plant in swamps and rice fields, wet grasslands, or open pine forests at altitudes from near sea level to 1300 m (4,265 ft). It was originally named by Clovis Thorel but formally described and published by François Pellegrin in 1920. A variety, U. delphinioides var. minor, was also described in 1920, but 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...
reduced the variety to synonymy
Synonym (taxonomy)
In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that is or was used for a taxon of organisms that also goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies...
under U. delphinioides because he discovered a continuous range of sizes between the larger and smaller forms, size being the only distinctive characteristic in the 1920 description of the variety.