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Pinguicula simulans
A species whose name is a warning: simulans means 'the one that resembles', and this plant from Nuevo León, described in 2019, was indeed taken for another species for years. It belongs to the small white-flowered butterworts of section Microphyllum, a north-eastern Mexican group in which the species are barely separable on the flower and the distinction has to be sought in the leaves.
No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.
Identification
Identification turns on the leaves. The winter leaves are spathulate and longer than broad, with a slightly recurved tip; the summer leaves form a loose rosette. The calyx matters too: it is glandular on the outer surface. For the exact dimensions of rosette, leaf, scape and flower, for flower colour and for flowering time we could find no freely available, testable statement from the original description; those fields have therefore been left empty on the fact card. The flower is described in the literature as resembling that of Pinguicula gracilis — a small pale flower, and thus precisely the character on which you should not identify this species.
Similar species
The comparison species is Pinguicula gracilis, also from Nuevo León and also in section Microphyllum; the flowers are closely alike. P. immaculata and P. nivalis belong to the same company of small white-flowered north-eastern Mexican species. The usable distinction for P. simulans lies in the spathulate winter leaves, longer than broad and with a slightly recurved tip, and in the glandular outer surface of the calyx. Both are characters calling for a hand lens and a photograph of the plant in its winter state; the flower alone will not get you there.
The trap and how it works
The sticky summer leaves form a flypaper trap of the usual design: stalked glands with a clear droplet, sessile glands releasing digestive enzymes as soon as prey makes contact, and a leaf margin bending slowly over the catch. For the small species of this section, growing on poor mineral soils in north-eastern Mexico, the catch is the chief source of nitrogen: the substrate supplies almost none. The catch is mostly small two-winged flies and ants. In the dry months the plant withdraws into thick glandless winter leaves and does not feed.
Habitat and ecology
The type locality lies at Potrero Redondo in the municipality of Santiago, in the Sierra Madre Oriental south of Monterrey. That is limestone country: steep faces, canyons and high valleys with pine and oak woodland. Plants of this group grow there on mineral sites that stay damp — limestone crevices, rock feet and slopes where water runs over the rock after rain (R2, R1) — in the half shade of open woodland (B5). For a habitat and elevation statement specific to this species we found no testable source; the elevation field has therefore been left empty.
Distribution and elevation
Endemic to the Mexican state of Nuevo León, in the Sierra Madre Oriental, with the type locality at Potrero Redondo in the municipality of Santiago — in agreement with the entry in our species list. The known range is small. The mountains south of Monterrey are among the best-visited parts of north-eastern Mexico, and yet an undescribed butterwort still turned up there in 2019; that says something about how hard these small look-alike species are to separate, and it makes it likely that neighbouring valleys hold further populations so far recorded under another name.
- Native
Forms and variation
No wild varieties have been described. In a species only split off from a close relative in 2019 that is the right order of business: first it must become clear how far the species itself reaches and how much variation within it is normal, before anything can be distinguished inside it. In this group that is a real question, because the characters used — leaf shape, calyx glands — are small and sensitive to growing conditions. No natural hybrids are reported, though related species grow in the same range.
Where and when to see it
This species calls for documenting rather than identifying. Search damp limestone spots in the mountains south of Monterrey for small white-flowered butterworts, and with every find photograph not only the flower but also the winter rosette from above and from the side, with a scale or a coin beside it, and the outside of the calyx. Anyone who records only the flower cannot afterwards assign the observation to one of the species of this section. Note altitude and rock type. Leave plants where they are; a good photographic series is worth more here than a specimen.
Conservation status
The species has not been assessed for the global IUCN Red List and is not listed in CITES. What is known is little: a species described in 2019 with a small known range in one part of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The mountains south of Monterrey are under considerable pressure from recreation, second homes and road building, and the damp limestone spots these butterworts depend on are the first to go. In addition, a species only just separated from another does not yet appear in existing conservation plans. There is no category because the assessment has not been made; in a species six years old that is to be expected, but it is not reassuring.
Scientific name
Pinguicula simulans | Zamudio, Salinas, Hernández-Rendón & Quirino, 2019
Described by Sergio Zamudio, Antonio Salinas, J. Hernández Rendón and G. Quirino in 2019/2020, in the article "Pinguicula simulans (Lentibulariaceae), a new species from Nuevo León, Mexico", Phytotaxa 424(1). The species occurs in the Mexican state of Nuevo León; the precise type locality could not be established with certainty. The name "simulans" is Latin for "imitating, resembling" and likely refers to a resemblance to another, already known species from the same region — which species exactly could not be established with certainty.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.