A COMPARISON OF VARIABILITY IN UTRICULARIA CORNUTA AND UTRICULARIA JUNCEA

Although Utricularia cornuta Michx. and U. juncea Vahl, sympatric in the southeastern United States, have been considered conspecific by various authors, the present biosystematic approach shows them to be separate species. The taxa are seasonally isolated. While both have the same chromosome number (n = 9), strong internal isolation is apparent since artificial hybrids cannot be produced by standard methods. In Utricularia cornuta the mean values of characters studied quantitatively are much higher than those of U. juncea though the extremes of the ranges may overlap. Utricularia juncea has both cleistogamous flowers and chasmogamous flowers while U. cornuta has only chasmogamous flowers. The flowers are self-fertile and apparently are usually, if not always, self-pollinated, even though they are highly adapted to specialized insect pollinators.