Utricularia dichotoma, commonly known as fairy aprons, is a variable, perennial species of terrestrial bladderwort. It is a widespread species with mauve or purple fan-shaped flowers on a slender stalk and usually grows in wet locations.
Utricularia dichotoma is a perennial herb with numerous underground trailing stems with bladders in diameter. It has absent or a few variable leaves, oval-spathulate long to narrow-lanceolate and up to long. The former is more typical of plants growing in wet soil, the latter of plants growing fully submerged. The inflorescence are borne on a slender, wiry stem long, they are solitary, in pairs or whorls of three or four flowers in clusters near the end of the stem. Each mauve or purple flower has a small upper petal and a broader, semicircular lower lip wide with two or three prominent white or yellow markings, and the corolla is long. Flowering occurs from August to April and the fruit is a globular capsule up to wide.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Utricularia dichotoma was first formally described in 1805 by Jacques Labillardière and the description was published in Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen.[5] [6] The specific epithet (dichotoma) is Latin for "dividing into pairs" and refers to the double arrangement of flowers which this species often displays.[7]
Fairy aprons has a large range and is native to New Caledonia, it grows in all states of Australia and in New Zealand on the North Island, South Island and Stewart Island / Rakiura — this being the most southerly location at which a member of this genus occurs. It grows in moist and wet locations.[3] [7]