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Pinguicula mundtii
A Spanish butterwort with a double pun in its name: it is named after the Río Mundo, the river that emerges in a waterfall from the limestone of the Sierra de Alcaraz — and the species grows precisely there, on the dripping travertine walls around the spring. Pinguicula mundi, spelled P. mundtii in our species list, was described in 1996 and stands morphologically between P. longifolia and P. vallisneriifolia.
No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.
Identification
A substantial rosette plant with two generations of leaves a year. In spring the leaves are elliptic to obovate-oblong, three to six centimetres long and one and a half to two and a half wide; in summer they become considerably larger, six to eleven centimetres long and one and a half to three wide. The leaf is bright green, sticky and with inrolled margins. The flower is violet, twelve to twenty-three millimetres across, with an upper lip distinctly darker than the lower — a character obvious at once in the field. The spur is long, straight, cylindrical and awl-shaped, eight to fifteen millimetres. The plant overwinters as a winter bud on the rock.
Similar species
The two species it stands between are also the two it can be confused with. Pinguicula longifolia, from the central Pyrenees, has summer leaves seven to seventeen centimetres long and a spur nine to sixteen millimetres; the overlap is considerable, but the ranges lie hundreds of kilometres apart. P. vallisneriifolia, from the sierras of Cazorla and Segura just to the south, has much longer, strap-shaped summer leaves reaching twenty centimetres and more and a larger flower of twenty-five to thirty-five millimetres. In case of doubt leaf length and flower size decide — and for most finds geography is already enough.
The trap and how it works
A flypaper trap on wet limestone, in a setting run by water. Stalked glands hold a sticky droplet and sessile glands release digestive enzymes as soon as prey is lying on the leaf; the margin then rolls slowly over the catch so the fluid does not run off down the wall. The site — dripping travertine, with almost daily morning fog — keeps the droplets working all season. The catch consists of the gnats and small flies that swarm densely in spring habitats around the waterfall. On bare limestone, where running water carries away everything loose, that is virtually the only source of nitrogen.
Habitat and ecology
Wet, shaded limestone and travertine walls over which spring water seeps, at nine hundred and fifty to eleven hundred metres (R1, R2). The walls are moss-covered and stay damp all year; the near-daily morning fog and the cool, wet conditions around the spring make the microclimate stable. There is no soil in the ordinary sense: the plants root in moss and in crevices of the tufa. Competition is therefore slight, but anything that loses its grip falls literally off the wall.
Distribution and elevation
Known from the border area of the provinces of Albacete and Jaén in southeastern Spain, between Alcaraz and Orcera, with the best-known occurrence around the source of the Río Mundo and the nearby limestone caves. The range is therefore very small and the species is endemic to Spain. Our own species list could find no distribution data for this name; the picture given here rests on the original description and on the nomenclatural databases. The altitudinal band is narrow: barely a hundred and fifty metres between the lowest and highest known site.
Forms and variation
No wild varieties are recognised. The most striking change of form is seasonal and applies to all plants: the smaller spring rosette is replaced in summer by considerably longer leaves. What does complicate the file is the name: the species was described as Pinguicula mundi, while our species list carries the spelling P. mundtii — a slip that has persisted in several datasets. Later literature has also debated whether the plant is a species in its own right or an intermediate in the longifolia–vallisneriifolia complex. No natural hybrids have been described as such.
Where and when to see it
The area around the source of the Río Mundo is a busy place, and that is both the opportunity and the risk. From the footpaths, look at the wet overhanging limestone faces and the travertine terraces with water running constantly over them; the plants sit there at eye level and above, among the moss. Early in the morning, in fog, the glandular droplets are fullest. Stay on the paths — the travertine is brittle and the moss is the plant's rooting medium — and do not climb the wall for a photograph.
Conservation status
The species has not been assessed for the global IUCN Red List and is not in CITES, so there is no international category. What is known nevertheless calls for attention: a Spanish endemic with an extremely small range in a narrow altitudinal band, on a site wholly dependent on a constant water-bearing spring. Springs in southeastern Spain are under pressure from groundwater abstraction for irrigation and from longer droughts; if the water leaves the wall, the plant leaves with it. Visitor pressure comes on top, since the best-known site lies beside a tourist attraction. A regional assessment and targeted monitoring would be more useful here than a global category.
Scientific name
Pinguicula mundtii | Blanca et al.
Described in 2020 in the article "Two new calcicolous species of Pinguicula sect. Pinguicula (Lentibulariaceae) growing on rocky habitats of the Iberian Peninsula", Phytotaxa 456(3), along with a second new species from the same article. The species grows on calcareous rocks on the Iberian Peninsula; the precise type locality could not be established with certainty. Who or what exactly is honoured by the species name could not be established with certainty.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.