The name Utricularia triflora suggests three flowers, but counting open blooms is only the beginning of identification. This Northern Territory bladderwort combines a spreading lower corolla lip with a deeply divided upper lip, and it can flower while seasonal swamp water retreats around it.
Accepted name and placement
Utricularia triflora P.Taylor was published in Kew Bulletin 41: 5 in 1986. Kew accepts the species, records its native range as the northern Northern Territory and describes an annual of the seasonally dry tropical biome. No synonyms or accepted infraspecific taxa are displayed in the record consulted. Plants of the World Online.
It belongs to section Pleiochasia, subgenus Polypompholyx in this series, following Reut and Płachno's comparative species table. Sectional placement source.
Recognising the flower
Boaz Ng's field account describes purple flowers with a broad, flaring lower lip and shallow irregular lobes. Yellow near the flower opening grades into white across the palate, edged by dark purple markings. The upper lip divides into two rounded lobes. Several flowers may develop on a stalk without opening simultaneously. Ng's illustrated observations, 2021.
Taylor's draft Australian family treatment records stalks 6–14 cm tall bearing 2–4 flowers, with corollas 6–12 mm long. It describes narrow leaves reaching 20 mm and traps in two size classes, approximately 1 and 3 mm. The curved spur is about as long as the lower lip. This manuscript is explicitly a draft, so its measurements are presented as that author's treatment rather than as a newly revised flora account. Taylor's draft Lentibulariaceae treatment, species 18.
For a photographic record, include the complete stalk with buds and spent flowers. A photograph of one open flower cannot show the total flower number. Add a side view so the spur can be assessed without disturbing the plant.
Habitat and flowering
Ng observed the species in the Howard River Sandplains, flowering in receding shallow water beside a relatively persistent seasonal swamp and in drying mud on another swamp crossing. His observations suggest that searching only small, early-drying seepages can miss its flowering habitat. Field habitat account.
Taylor's draft lists seasonal swamps and lagoon margins and records flowering in May–June. These observations describe field conditions and recorded dates; they do not establish an exact cultivation calendar or the complete possible flowering season. Draft flora account.
Separating it from Utricularia hamiltonii
Ng distinguishes U. triflora by its wider lower lip, rounded upper-lip lobes and taller, usually multiflowered stalk. In his comparison, U. hamiltonii has a squarer lower lip, sharper upper-lip lobes and a shorter stalk usually carrying one flower. Use these characters together rather than relying on flower colour or number alone. Illustrated species comparison.
Cultivation and propagation
A verified, repeatable growing or germination protocol was not located for this account. In particular, the evidence checked does not establish safe minimum temperatures, a preferred substrate recipe, seed-storage conditions or a drying treatment.
For a legally sourced accession, follow the entire growth cycle in cultivation records. Record water depth, emergence, flowering and capsule development, then document whether collected seed produces another generation. An annual classification makes this last step especially useful when assessing whether a method maintains an accession successfully.
Seasonal water recession is a field observation, not an instruction to dry a cultivated pot abruptly. Any attempt to reproduce that transition should be recorded as an experimental treatment rather than presented as established species care.
Research checked 23 September 2026. Current conservation status remains a separate verification task; historical regional categories are not presented as current. Images require identity and rights checks. No Nano Nursery stock availability is implied.
