Pinguicula lattanziae — Vorstman's Guide to the Carnivorous Plants

No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.

Identification

A flat rosette of entire, oblong-ovate leaves, yellow-green and greasy to the touch because they are covered in mucilage glands; the margin is curled upward. Glabrous scapes rise from the centre, each with one two-lipped flower: a two-lobed upper lip, a three-lobed lower lip with throat markings guiding the visitor inward, and a spur behind. Measurements for plant, corolla and spur, and an exact flower colour, could not be traced to a checkable source for this guide and are therefore not given; the original description does record them.

Similar species

The species sits among a run of recently described Italian butterworts that lie morphologically close together and whose boundaries have been revised repeatedly in recent years: P. christinae in the northern Apennines, P. apuana and P. mariae in the Apuan Alps, P. fiorii and P. vallis-regiae in Abruzzo. Identification within that group rests on flower and seed characters and on chromosome numbers, not on first impressions in the field. Anyone finding an Italian butterwort would do well to record the massif and the site precisely.

The trap and how it works

A flypaper trap of the ordinary butterwort type. The upper leaf surface bears stalked glands producing a sticky droplet and, between them, sessile glands that release digestive enzymes only once prey is lying on them. Small insects landing on the leaf stick fast; their struggling brings more glands into contact with the prey, and over the following hours the leaf margin rolls slowly over it so the digestive fluid stands in a shallow dish. On flushed, bare rock that is very nearly the only source of nitrogen, since the water carries away whatever nutrients arrive.

Habitat and ecology

As with most Italian mountain butterworts: permanently wet, calcareous ground — dripping rock faces, seepage where spring water leaves the rock, and the damp fringe along mountain streams. The plant tolerates no drought, no acid substrate and no shading by advancing scrub, so it grows where running water keeps the substrate bare and poor. Sites of this type are rare and small in the Apennines, and they lie far apart.

Distribution and elevation

Italy; the species is an endemic with a small range. The region it comes from precisely could not be confirmed from a freely available source for this guide — the description itself records the type locality, but was behind a paywall while this account was compiled. Our own species list gives 'Italy', and that is the level at which we leave it here. For a guide that is unsatisfying, and this species is on the list to be completed in a future round with the original publication in hand.

Recorded (one-degree cells)

Distribution based solely on records at GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), not on TDWG regions — those are often far larger than the actual range. The light halo is the area around a record, the dark core the record itself. The darker square is the only one-degree cell — roughly a hundred and ten kilometres — in which the species has been recorded, from all GBIF records. This is coarser than for most species because hardly any record of this plant carries an accurate coordinate. It shows where the species has been seen, not where it occurs: an empty square means nothing.

Forms and variation

No wild varieties are recognised. The interesting movement is at species level: this is one of many Italian butterworts described only in the last two decades, in a period when molecular methods and careful morphometrics have opened up a genus long thought fairly uniform. The boundaries between some of those taxa have not yet settled, and further shifts in the coming years are quite possible.

Where and when to see it

Without a reliable locality no targeted search is possible, and for this species that is not the intention either. Anyone meeting butterworts on wet rock faces in the Italian limestone mountains should in any case document them carefully: photographs of the flower from the front and the side, of the rosette and of the ripe fruit, plus the site and elevation. Leave the plant standing. For the recently described Italian species a good, well-located observation is scientifically usable; a dug-up plant is not.

Conservation status

The species has not been assessed for the global Red List; there is no international category, and CITES does not apply. What can be said with certainty is limited: an Italian endemic with a small range, described from a narrowly bounded area, and the habitat type shared by all butterworts of the Italian mountains — permanently wet, calcareous rock sites wholly dependent on a steady spring discharge. The risks that apply to that whole group apply here too: capping of springs, drier summers, rank growth and collectors. The empty assessment field says nothing about safety.

Scientific name

Pinguicula lattanziae | Peruzzi & Gestri, 2016

Described by Lorenzo Peruzzi and Gabriele Gestri in 2016, in PLOS ONE 11(12): e0167610. The holotype was collected on 21 June 2014 on Monte Aiona, in the Northern Apennines in Liguria (Italy), at 1600–1700 metres altitude; the species appears to be endemic to Liguria. The species epithet is dedicated to Edda Lattanzi (Rome), an expert on Italian flora, on the occasion of her 85th birthday.

World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.