Insectivorous Plants · Charles Darwin
UTRICULARIA MINOR.
FIG. 25. (Utricularia minor.) Quadrifid process, greatly enlarged. This rare species was sent me in a living state from Cheshire, through the kindness of Mr. John Price. The leaves and bladders are much smaller than those of Utricularia neglecta. The leaves bear fewer and shorter bristles, and the bladders are more globular. The antennæ, instead of projecting in front of the bladders, are curled under the valve, and are armed with twelve or fourteen extremely long multicellular bristles, generally arranged in pairs. These, with seven or eight long bristles on both sides of the peristome, form a sort of net over the valve, which would tend to prevent all animals, excepting very small ones, entering the bladder. The valve and collar have the same essential structure as in the two previous species; but the glands are not quite so numerous; the oblong ones are rather more elongated, whilst the two-armed ones are rather less elongated. The four bristles which project obliquely from the lower edge of the valve are short. Their shortness, compared with those on the valves of the foregoing species, is intelligible if my view is correct that they serve to prevent too large animals forcing an entrance through the valve, thus injuring it; for the valve is already protected to a certain extent by the incurved antennæ, together with the lateral bristles. The bifid processes are like those in the previous species; but the quadrifids differ in the four arms (fig. 25) [page 430] being directed to the same side; the two longer ones being central, and the two shorter ones on the outside.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.