Mystery Plant: Purple bladderwort, Utricularia purpurea

The best time to see this plant is in the morning, just as the sun is coming up, while you quietly paddle in the backwater end of a pond, or perhaps inside a mysterious Carolina bay. By the hundreds, the modest flowers, arising from their slender stalks, appear collectively like bright pink candle flames dancing over the dark water.

This is an aquatic, carnivorous plant, of course. It is just one of about 70 species and taxonomic varieties of "meat-eating" (or "insectivorous") species in North America, these placed variously in several different genera. Worldwide, there are additional genera (and species), but the great majority are North American. Carnivorous plants really became a focus of naturalists' attention with the publication of Charles Darwin's book "Insectivorous Plants," in 1875, and our attraction to them has continued. Perhaps the most well-known of our local terrestrial carnivorous species include the bizarre Venus fly-trap (Dionaea muscipula), which occurs naturally only in the two Carolinas, as well as various pitcher plants (species of Sarracenia) which are rather broadly distributed in the Southeast.