Common Butterwort, a very showy carnivorous plant

 

These low cliffs along the shore of Lake Superior host lots of interesting plants, but here I'll focus on perhaps the most amazing of their lot, the Common Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris). This location is along the northeastern tip of the Keweenaw (key-wuh-naw) Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Wet seeps provide a steady moisture regime - perfect conditions for this post's protagonist.

Dozens of Common Butterworts brighten the damp rock face. This interesting carnivore is a true northerner, and the northern Great Lakes marks its southernmost occurrences in eastern North America. The plant becomes more common to the north, and Common Butterwort has a circumboreal distribution (worldwide, at northerly latitudes).

The violet-like flowers of this butterwort species are quite striking and often likened to violets in appearance. The oft-used English name, "Common" Butterwort is not a very good one and is derived from the epithet of the scientific name, "vulgaris", which means "common". A far better name, in my opinion - and one that is occasionally used - is Violet Butterwort. That descriptor describes the flowers beautifully, and this species tends not to be very common across large swaths of its range.

There are about 125 Pinguicula butterworts currently described, and unlike the northern species featured here, the largest number of species occurs in Central and South America.

This site almost looked surreal, is if it were some sort of odd, planted rock garden. And a rock garden it is, although no one created this one. The butterworts are highly ornamental in appearance, and it was great to finally clap eyes on flowering specimens.

As I mentioned this plant is a true carnivore, and it belongs to the world's largest family of carnivorous plants, the Bladderwort Family (Lentibulariaceae). There are some 250 species in this group, and about half of them are butterworts, and the remaining majority are bladderworts in the genus Utricularia. A smaller genus, Genlisea (corkscrew plants) make up the remainder of the family.

As always, click the image to enlarge

Unlike the high-tech traps of bladderworts, the butterworts use a simpler bug-killing design. The thick fleshy basal leaves (the genus name Pinguicula is derived from the Latin word pinguis, which means "somewhat fleshy") are quite sticky and about any hapless insect that alights on them will be stuck fast. Tiny hairs on the leaves' dorsal surfaces are capped with adhesive mucilage. The effect is like flypaper. Glands on the leaf surface generate digestive acids and enzymes that quickly break down the insect's soft parts. Eventually, the plant digests the meat of the bug through tiny pores in the leaves, thus deriving essential nutrients while growing in nutrient-poor substrates.

If you click the above photo to enlarge, you'll see all manner of trapped insects, and other debris.

While a butterwort patch may look like a showy little garden to us, it is a minefield for any insects venturing through. One misstep and their fate is to be eaten by plant, and at least from a human-centric perspective, that would not be a fun way to go.