Species library › Utricularia › Utricularia olivacea
Carnivorous Partly documented

Utricularia olivacea

piedmont bladderwort

A tiny, rootless, suspended aquatic bladderwort from the Americas: thread-fine stems with minute traps drift among other vegetation in shallow, acidic, still water. It is usually treated as an annual and is easily overlooked; the small white flowers are held just above the surface. In cultivation it behaves like other small suspended aquatics: soft, acidic, clean water, bright light and companion plants to hold it.

Utricularia olivacea
Photo: Dan Agne (la vaca vegetariana) from Mukwonago, WI, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day IntermediateTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Dry airBand in Plantistry
Light Full sunDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodAquatic

Where it grows wild

Suspended in shallow, still, nutrient-poor and acidic water of ponds, pond margins, seepage pools and ditches, typically tangled among sedges, rushes, mosses and other bladderworts rather than floating free in open water. In the eastern United States it belongs to coastal-plain pond communities; in the tropics it occurs in savanna pools and marshy wetlands.

Mostly a lowland plant, from near sea level on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain to modest elevations in tropical savanna regions. Our data file had no usable wild records, so there is no measured elevation.

Eastern United States (coastal plain, Mississippi to New Jersey)Cuba and the West IndiesCentral AmericaNorthern and central South America (Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, Bolivia)

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 2.0 licence, unmodified.