A beautiful flower from a rather deadly plant! The bladders are in fact traps to catch various organisms, and when the prey touches the trigger hairs, it is sucked into the bladder. This is how the plant get its nutrients! Here a spider lies in wait for visiting insects.
It grows on the wet areas of the savanna, and here it was almost like a bog – not easy to cross. The path to Roraima was here dry and hard, it was far from flat and no sign of a bog a few metres away. I was taken by surprise how mushy it was when I walked towards this peculiar plant growing all by itself out in the open. The hight was about 130 cm – impressive!
It often grows very close to the bromeliad Brocchinia on which it immerses its large bladders and then goes on to the next bromeliad using its runners. Thus this plant can be attached to many bromeliads. If you see this bromeliad, also look for this bladderwort. I didn’t see the bromeliad here, but it could have been hidden from view, as the vegetation was very dense (hence the very tall flower stem).
From afar it looks like a dry savanna, but it was more like a bog!
Native range is Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil
Last updated on 3 April 2023
