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utricularia in CA

Hi All,

I was camping last week in the Lake Tahoe area and while wading in a stream came across some utric growing in the water. (Boy was I surprised!
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) Upon further investigation I found whole pond bottoms covered with it, it was growing in huge quantities in all areas with shallow, slow moving water. It was not flowering but in some areas the traps had turned a deep purple (as describe in other recent posts). The only free-floating aquatic utric the SG described which fit the description and comes from this area was u. macrorhiza. Are there any others that might be growing here?

Thanks,

-noah
 
Purpley traps? I would say it is indeed u.. macrorhiza for someone at a past bacps meeting said it was native in the tahoe area. Odd, the only utric i have seen outdoors...none! you are lucky!
 
According to "Carnivorous Plants of the West, vol. II", California has macrorhiza, intermedia, minor, and gibba, orchroleuca just discovered in 1994 and inflata that is probably introduced.

Bladder colour isn't a very good diagnostic. I'm not very good at IDing aquatics, but here goes:

macrorhiza - free floating to 1m or more in length, 1mm thick, leaves threadlike, round in cross section

intermedia - stems narrow (about .4mm), leaves with flat, blunt bristly-edged ultimate sections

minor - also has narrow stems, leaves are flat and blunt with smooth-edged ultimate sections, some branches have traps and some don't

Those are the usual suspects, the other species are much rarer in your area.
 
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