Utricularia sect. Phyllaria is a section

Section (botany)

In botany, a section is a taxonomic rank below the genus, but above the species. The subgenus, if present, is higher than the section, and the rank of series, if present, is below the section. Sections are typically used to help organise very large genera, which may have hundreds of species...

 in the genus Utricularia. The sixteen species in this section are small or very small lithophytic

Lithophyte

Lithophytes are a type of plant that grows in or on rocks. Lithophytes feed off moss, nutrients in rain water, litter, and even their own dead tissue....

 or epiphytic

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

 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...

s native to the mountains of Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, ranging from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

. One species, Utricularia striatula

Utricularia striatula

Utricularia striatula is a small carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia. It is widespread from tropical Africa to New Guinea. U. striatula grows as a lithophyte or epiphyte on wet rocks or tree trunks at altitudes from near sea level to . It was originally described by James...

, is an exception and is widespread in much of the Old World

Old World

The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....

 tropics. Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz

Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz

Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz was a German botanist and garden director in Bogor, West Java and Kolkatta.He worked in India, Indonesia, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Kurz when citing a botanical name.-References:...

 originally described and published this section as Utricularia subg.

Subgenus

In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.In zoology, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the generic name and the specific epithet: e.g. the Tiger Cowry of the Indo-Pacific, Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, which...

 Phyllaria in 1874. Franciszek Kamieński

Franciszek Kamienski

Franciszek Kamieński was a Polish botanist. His name has also been spelled Frans Michailow von Kamieńsky or misspelled with the accent above the e, as in Kamiénski. Kamieński had described and authored many species of Utricularia...

 reviewed the genus in 1891 and reduced Kunz's subgenus to a section. Later botanists, including 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...

, agreed with Kamieński's assessment. In Taylor's 1986 revision of the genus, he placed this section in subgenus Utricularia

Utricularia subg. Utricularia

Utricularia subg. Utricularia is a subgenus in the genus Utricularia....

. Later molecular data resulted in the revision of Taylor's treatment, reinstating subgenus Bivalvaria

Utricularia subg. Bivalvaria

Utricularia subg. Bivalvaria is a subgenus in the genus Utricularia. It was originally described by Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz in 1874. In Peter Taylor's 1989 monograph on the genus, he reduced the subgenus to synonym under section Oligocista, a decision that was later reversed in the light of molecular...

and placing this section within it.