page_title: Pinguicula
section_title: Habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Pinguicula / Characteristics / Habitat
caption_attribution_description: Pinguicula cyclosecta summer rosette.jpg Author: Denis Barthel
context_page_description: Pinguicula, commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. They use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. Of the roughly 80 currently known species, 13 are native to Europe, 9 to North America, and some to northern Asia. The largest number of species is in South and Central America.
context_section_description: Butterworts can be divided roughly into two main groups based on the climate in which they grow; each group is the further subdivided based on morphological characteristics. Although these groups are not cladistically supported by genetic studies, these groupings are nonetheless convenient for horticultural purposes.
  Tropical butterworts either form somewhat compact winter rosettes composed of fleshy leaves or retain carnivorous leaves year-round. They are typically located in regions where water is least seasonally plentiful and areas, as too damp soil conditions can lead to rotting. They are found in areas in which  nitrogenous resources are known to be in low levels, infrequent or unavailable: due to acidic soil conditions. Temperate species often form tight buds (called hibernacula) composed of scale-like leaves during a winter dormancy period. During this time the roots (with the exception of P. alpina) and carnivorous leaves wither. Temperate species flower when they form their summer rosettes while tropical species flower at each rosette change.
  Many butterworts cycle between rosettes composed of carnivorous and non-carnivorous leaves as the seasons change, so these two ecological groupings can be further divided according to their ability to produce different leaves during their growing season. If the growth in the summer is different in size or shape to that in the early spring (for temperate species) or in the winter (tropical species), then plants are considered heterophyllous; whereas uniform growth identifies a homophyllous species.
  This results in four groupings:
  Tropical butterworts: species which do not undergo a winter dormancy but continue to alternately bloom and form rosettes.
  Heterophyllous tropical species: species that alternate between rosettes of carnivorous leaves during the warm season and compact rosettes of fleshy non-carnivorous leaves during the cool season. Examples include P. moranensis, P. gypsicola, and P. laxifolia.
  Homophyllous tropical species: these species produce rosettes of carnivorous leaves of roughly uniform size throughout the year, such as P. gigantea.
  Temperate butterworts: these plants are native to climate zones with cold winters. They produce a winter-resting bud (hibernaculum) during the winter.
  Heterophyllous temperate species: species where the vegetative and generative rosettes differ in shape and/or size, as seen in P. lutea and P. lusitanica.
  Homophyllous temperate species: the vegetative and generative rosettes appear identical, as exhibited by P. alpina, P. grandiflora, and P. vulgaris.
caption: Summer rosette of Pinguicula cyclosecta (carnivorous phase)
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