Carnivorous Plant Newsletter
Volume 37, Number 4, December 2008, page 110; Back Cover

New Cultivars

Keywords: cultivar: Utricularia alpina × humboldtii ‘Nüdlinger Flair’.

Utricularia alpina × humboldtii ‘Nüdlinger Flair’

Submitted: 25 October 2007

In June 1994 I made a crossing between Utricularia alpina (female) and U. humboldtii (male). Two flowers set seed, some of which germinated. The plants obtained from one capsule are growing very well and have been setting flowers since 2000 (see Back Cover). The petioles look similar to those of U. alpina, but have a much longer stalk. The lamina is obovate to broadly lanceolate and up to 10 cm long and 4 cm wide. In shady conditions, the leaf stalk is up to 20 cm long, so the whole leaf could be up to 30 cm long. The traps looks similar to those of U. alpina and are about 1 mm in diameter.

The flowers are produced mainly in early summer. The inflorescence reaches up to 30 cm in length and usually bears two to four flowers. The flowers share more characteristics of U. humboldtii and are usually the same size as that species. They are about 5 cm long and beautifully colored. The corolla has the blue-violet coloration of U. humboldtii, the lower lip has two very conspicuous, swollen yellow rims on the palate, which are prominent as in U. humboldtii. These rims are surrounded by a beautiful white spot, which however is much larger than in U. humboldtii. The yellow rims with the white spot in the middle of the blue-violet corolla give a nice contrast as it is not found in any of the large flowered Utricularia species or hybrids. The calyx lobes are equal, narrowly ovate, about 2 cm long and have the same coloration as the corolla.

I grow the plants in pure sphagnum moss, where they produce numerous offshoots and cover the whole surface very quickly. The plants like to grow in similar conditions as U. alpina, not so wet as U. humboldtii. The temperatures in winter are about 12°C, in summer around 15- 25°C. They get about 3-4 hours of direct sunlight per day.

I named this hybrid on 10 May 2006, after the old town of Nüdlingen (Bavaria, Germany) where my carnivorous plant nursery has been located for 25 years now. Each year we have a nice village fair called “Nüdlinger Fläär” which inspired me to choose this name.

—THOMAS CAROW • Nüdlingen • Germany

Back Cover: The new cultivar Utricularia ‘Nüdlinger Flair’. Photograph by Thomas Carow.