Pinguicula lutea Walter

Yellow butterwort, yellow butterwort, yellow-flowered butterwort

Climate known 82 photographs Carnivorous plant

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Pinguicula lutea, commonly known as the yellow butterwort, is a species of warm-temperate carnivorous plant in the family Lentibulariaceae. It grows in savannas and sandy bog areas of the Southeastern United States.

Text from Wikipedia, “Pinguicula lutea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Pinguicula

Pinguicula, commonly known as 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. 126 species are currently accepted. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Pinguicula”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Lentibulariaceae

Described by

Walter

Native to

Alabama, Florida, Georgia +4

Wild records

1591 in range· 365 open

At a glance

Warmest month

32°C

Jul, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1487mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Aug 190 mm (CHELSA)

Light

18–41DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Pinguicula, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, January to March and June to September in the northern hemisphere (January to March and June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1487 mm a year, wettest August at 190 mm, driest November at 82 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -0.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Isoloba lutea (Walter) Raf.; Isoloba recurva Raf.; Pinguicula campanulata Lam.; Pinguicula edentula Hook.; Pinguicula lutea f. alba Folkerts & J.D.Freeman and 2 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Pinguicula, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, January to March and June to September in the northern hemisphere (January to March and June to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1048 mm of 1487 mm) falls in January to March and June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.8 °C against a yearly mean of 19.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March and July to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: 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 gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1487 mm a year, wettest August at 190 mm, driest November at 82 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1487 mm a year at the habitat, 1048 mm of it January to March and June to September. Wettest month August at 190 mm, driest November at 82 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1296 mm to 1775 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

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

Light Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 41 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 17, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

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.

Warmth and air Cold floor -0.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -0.6 °C, the absolute minimum -10.2 °C, about 5 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells 5.6 °C to 12.7 °C), warmest day 31.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -0.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 248 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	16 / 15–22	18 / 17–23	22 / 19–25	25 / 23–27	29 / 26–30	31 / 29–32	32 / 30–33	31 / 30–32	30 / 28–30	26 / 25–28	21 / 20–25	18 / 16–23
Night °C	8 / 6–13	9 / 7–14	12 / 10–16	15 / 13–18	19 / 18–22	23 / 22–25	24 / 23–26	24 / 23–26	22 / 21–24	18 / 16–21	13 / 11–17	9 / 7–14
Rain mm	108 / 59–143	108 / 68–149	126 / 93–161	83 / 63–124	88 / 61–134	175 / 142–209	187 / 151–218	190 / 149–223	154 / 113–198	92 / 75–112	82 / 53–121	94 / 59–146
DLI	20 / 18–22	24 / 23–27	32 / 30–33	39 / 38–40	41 / 40–43	39 / 38–40	38 / 37–39	35 / 34–36	31 / 30–32	27 / 25–28	22 / 21–23	18 / 17–20
RH %	58 / 57–60	58 / 57–60	58 / 56–60	57 / 55–60	59 / 57–62	62 / 61–64	63 / 62–64	64 / 63–65	62 / 60–64	59 / 57–61	58 / 57–59	59 / 58–60

Each figure is the median across the 248 grid cells holding the 374 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1191:1827 (30.425, -88.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -10.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -0.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 248 distinct grid cells holding the 374 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1191:1827 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 30.50_-88.750, lapse-corrected -14 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 3 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 every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeAlabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina

Kew's description“perennial” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker28.159, -81.164 · in the densest population, 1063 records (67% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1591 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 365 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 93 km away. 24 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1217 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1591 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Jay Horn, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) James Hardee, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Pinguicula lutea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Differential Escape of Insects from Carnivorous Plant Traps

Thomas C. Gibson (1991) · The American Midland Naturalist

Effect of habitat structure on reproduction and prey capture of a rare carnivorous plant, Pinguicula lutea

Samantha B. Primer, Brenda Molano‐Flores, David N. Zaya, C. G. Helm (2018) · Arthropod-Plant Interactions

Propagating Pinguicula lutea

Bill Carroll (1979) · Carnivorous Plant Newsletter

An updated nomenclatural conspectus of infrageneric names in Pinguicula

Juan Carlos Zamora, Andreas Fleischmann (2024) · Carnivorous Plant Newsletter

Pinguicula lutea Walt. f. alba, f. nov. (Lentibulariaceae), a white-flowered form of the yellow butterwort.

George W. Folkerts, John D. Freeman (1989) · Castanea

Occurrence Download