The new Utricularia species described since Peter Taylor's monograph

Abstract

In his elaborate monograph of the genus Utricularia (Lentibulariaceae), Peter Taylor recognized 214 species of bladderworts. For this comprehensive revision of that large genus, which took him 41 years of passionate work, he studied the plants in their natural habitats and such cultivated in the greenhouses of Kew Gardens, but mainly his work is based on the thousands of herbarium specimens from all over the world that he thoroughly examined. As the bladderworts are a large and species-rich genus, and many species are often difficult to distinguish (several only with the aid of a magnifying glass by minute seed and trap details), a lot of different species and names have been published for over 200 years since Linnaeus put up the genus in 1753. Peter Taylor took the Sisyphean task to work through the more than 900 names for taxa of Utricularia that had been published. He studied and compared type specimens and descriptions, and finally was able to recognize that more than 3/4 of the names were actually representing synonyms of already described taxa, or invalid names. His all-encompassing monograph left nothing more to add!