Example ⟳ +
An example collection, so you can see what this page does. Nothing added here is kept: leaving deletes it.
Utricularia gibba; photograph (c) Daughter Dad, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Daughter Dad, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-08-28

Utricularia gibba L.

Humped bladderwort; Conespur bladderpod; Cone-spur bladderwort; Swollen-spurred bladderwort

Lentibulariaceae · Portugal, Spain +153 · listed by its genus as a carnivorous plant

Add one to my plants
Sow seed
Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) naturalist charlie, some rights reserved (CC BY)Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) naturalist charlie, some rights reserved (CC BY)Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) Samuel Buckner, some rights reserved (CC BY)Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) Samuel Buckner, some rights reserved (CC BY)Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) Samuel Buckner, some rights reserved (CC BY)Utricularia gibba, photograph (c) Craig Hensley, some rights reserved (CC BY) 87 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
-2.5°C
Record low -10.9 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
30°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,286mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
16–39DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Rain spread: 70% of the median year's rain takes 8 months, so no short rainy season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Utricularia gibba, commonly known as the humped bladderwort or floating bladderwort, is a small, mat-forming species of carnivorous aquatic bladderwort. It is found on all continents except Antarctica.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Utricularia gibba", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant, listed under the genus Utricularia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “hydrosubshrub”.

Seasons

The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (855 mm of 1,184 mm) takes 8 months, March, May to October and December. Mean temperature moves 17.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April, June and September.

Rain

1,184 mm in the median year at the habitat, 855 mm of it March, May to October and December. Wettest month June at 122 mm, driest month February at 77 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 831 mm to 1,928 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,286 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,184 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 39 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -2.5 °C, the absolute minimum -10.9 °C, 556 frost nights in 44 years, 12.6 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.4 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 5.1 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -10.5 °C to 19.5 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 30.0 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -2.5 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +3 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Group. Listed under the genus Utricularia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “hydrosubshrub”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Utricularia gibba through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 30 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 5.1 °C; 1,184 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost34.4° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-10.9° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 16–39RH 57–61%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 673 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C14 / -2–2616 / 0–2720 / 5–2823 / 12–2926 / 18–3129 / 22–3230 / 24–3330 / 24–3328 / 20–3123 / 14–2919 / 7–2715 / 1–26
Night °C5 / -11–206 / -10–209 / -5–2112 / 2–2317 / 8–2421 / 13–2522 / 16–2522 / 15–2519 / 12–2414 / 6–2310 / 1–216 / -7–20
Rain mm81 / 24–13777 / 27–14295 / 35–15183 / 47–136104 / 66–165122 / 86–233121 / 59–212111 / 54–229111 / 77–241102 / 71–19188 / 46–14989 / 30–150
DLI18 / 11–2922 / 17–3229 / 25–3735 / 31–4138 / 35–4239 / 34–4239 / 35–4335 / 33–4130 / 26–3525 / 17–3219 / 10–2916 / 8–28
RH %59 / 56–6658 / 56–6457 / 55–6357 / 54–6358 / 55–6360 / 57–6560 / 57–6661 / 56–6661 / 57–6660 / 57–6559 / 57–6559 / 57–67

Records on both sides of the equator: the 186 cells at least 10° south of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 673 cells that remain: the 629 at least 10° north and the 44 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 673 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (748 records in those cells; 1 more cell holds records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cell is left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1117:2037 (34.125, -78.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -10.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -2.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.4 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 673 distinct grid cells holding 748 of the 950 in-range records (1 further cell with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the northern side of the equator (629 cells poleward of 10° north, 186 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1117:2037 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 34.00_-78.125, lapse-corrected +3 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 11 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativePortugal, Spain, Greece, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Burkina, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Rwanda, Zaïre, Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Cape Provinces, Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Northern Provinces, Mauritius, Madagascar, Palestine, China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Japan, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Malaya, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, New Guinea, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, New Caledonia, Caroline Is., Hawaii, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Windward Is., French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay, Uruguay · introduced: Great Britain, Hungary, New Zealand North · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker28.291, -81.407 · in the densest population, 235 records (14% of those in range)
Kew's description“hydrosubshrub” · “subtropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1639 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 748 of them in the land cells it reads, of 950 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 918 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 60 km away. 118 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 689 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1639 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Utricularia gibba, photograph 1did not loadUtricularia gibba, photograph 2did not loadUtricularia gibba, photograph 3did not loadUtricularia gibba, photograph 4did not loadUtricularia gibba, photograph 5did not loadUtricularia gibba, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) naturalist charlie, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Samuel Buckner, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Craig Hensley, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Samolus parviflorus Samolus parviflorus Seaside brookweed Photo: CC0, author not statedFacelis retusa Facelis retusa Annual trampweed Photo: CC BY, Angus CampbellAmbrosia artemisiifolia Ambrosia artemisiifolia Ragweed Photo: CC BY, Bobo-XAnatherum glomeratum Anatherum glomeratum Poaceae Photo: CC BY, Forest & Kim StarrArundinaria tecta Arundinaria tecta Limber cane Photo: CC BY, David WilkinsVitis rotundifolia Vitis rotundifolia Muscadine grape Photo: CC BY, Alan Rockefeller

Other Utricularia 43 in the reference

Utricularia alpina Utricularia alpina Lentibulariaceae Photo: CC BY, Nolan ExeUtricularia aurea Utricularia aurea Asian golden bladderwort Photo: CC BY, Scott W. GavinsUtricularia australis Utricularia australis Bladderwort Photo: CC BY, Michel LangeveldUtricularia bifida Utricularia bifida Bifid bladderwort Photo: CC BY, jimmyUtricularia bisquamata Utricularia bisquamata Cape Bladderwort Photo: CC BY, Cricket RaspetUtricularia blanchetii Utricularia blanchetii Lentibulariaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, vitordematos12Utricularia caerulea Utricularia caerulea Blue Bladderwort Photo: CC0, author not statedUtricularia calycifida Utricularia calycifida Lentibulariaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Petr DlouhýUtricularia cornuta Utricularia cornuta Horned bladderwort Photo: CC0, author not statedUtricularia dichotoma Utricularia dichotoma Fairies' aprons Photo: CC BY, Lorraine CookUtricularia foliosa Utricularia foliosa Leafy bladderwort Photo: CC BY, Paulo NogueiraUtricularia fulva Utricularia fulva Lentibulariaceae Photo: CC BY, Donna Belder all 44 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Megopiza fornicata; Megopiza integra; Megopiza longirostris; Megozipa fornicata; Megozipa integra and 64 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Utricularia chiakiana: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)

Under another author Utricularia minor Pursh is an older name of this species, not Utricularia minor, a species of the reference. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Lentibulariaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Portugal, Spain, Greece +152
Wild records
1639 in range · 918 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 30 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (27 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 1 at a herbarium, 2 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 34.00_-78.125, lapse-corrected +3 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 232 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…