Bladderwort

Bladderwort, the popular name for the species of the interesting genus of dicotyledonous plants, Utricularia. They are aquatic plants with little or no roots, and with submerged leaves, much divided, and bearing numerous small bladders or "ascidia." These have a trap-door opening inwards, and are lined by four-rayed hairs. Numerous small aquatic animals, water-fleas, etc., enter these bladders, and are apparently suffocated, the hairs absorbing the liquid product of their decay as a manure. There is no true digestion. The bladders do not serve as floats. The flower is personate, and in some foreign species large and ornamental. Utricularia nelumbaefolia, a native of Brazil, which has round peltate leaves, lives in the water in the hollowed leaves of a Tillandsia. There are about 120 species in the genus, four of which are British, and these and others are widely distributed over the globe. They sometimes bear tuber-like structures.