Botanical atlas

Fairy Aprons

Utricularia dichotoma

Fairy Aprons has never been a plant of the pharmacy or the kitchen pot. Its story belongs to the wetlands of Australia and New Zealand, where it quietly performs one of the plant kingdom's more astonishing tricks, drawing in and digesting tiny aquatic creatures inside bladders too small and too fast for the eye to easily catch in the act. Nineteenth century naturalists exploring the Australian bush were charmed by its little mauve flowers rising above the waterline, shaped enough like a row of tiny pinafores or aprons to earn the plant its common name. Its fame today rests with botanists, pond keepers, and carnivorous plant enthusiasts rather than herbalists, treasured as a living demonstration of a flower that is also a hunter.

In tradition.

Fairy Aprons has never been a plant of the pharmacy or the kitchen pot. Its story belongs to the wetlands of Australia and New Zealand, where it quietly performs one of the plant kingdom's more astonishing tricks, drawing in and digesting tiny aquatic creatures inside bladders too small and too fast for the eye to easily catch in the act. Nineteenth century naturalists exploring the Australian bush were charmed by its little mauve flowers rising above the waterline, shaped enough like a row of tiny pinafores or aprons to earn the plant its common name. Its fame today rests with botanists, pond keepers, and carnivorous plant enthusiasts rather than herbalists, treasured as a living demonstration of a flower that is also a hunter.

Safety.

Not toxic to the touch, but it has no food or medicinal use and is protected in parts of its native range, so buy from a specialist nursery rather than collecting it in the wild.