Insectivorous Plants · Charles Darwin
UTRICULARIA VULGARIS.
Living plants from Yorkshire were sent me by Dr. Hooker. This species differs from the last in the stems and leaves being thicker or coarser; their divisions form a more acute angle with one another; the notches on the leaves bear three or four short bristles instead of one; and the bladders are twice as large, or about 1/5 of an inch (5.08 mm.) in diameter. In all essential respects the bladders resemble those of Utricularia neglecta, but the sides of the peristome are perhaps a little more [page 429] prominent, and always bear, as far as I have seen, seven or eight long multicellular bristles. There are eleven long bristles on each antenna, the terminal pair being included. Five bladders, containing prey of some kind, were examined. The first included five Cypris; a large copepod and a Diaptomus; the second, four Cypris; the third, a single rather large crustacean; the fourth, six crustaceans; and the fifth, ten. My son examined the quadrifid processes in a bladder containing the remains of two crustaceans, and found some of them full of spherical or irregularly shaped masses of matter, which were observed to move and to coalesce. These masses therefore consisted of protoplasm.
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