Common Butterwort

Common Name: Common Butterwort

Latin Name: Pinguicula vulgaris

Family: Lentibulariaceae (Bladderwort family)

Butterworts, so called because they are alleged to coagulate milk, are investivorous perennials with solitary flowers and a basal rosette of leaves covered in slime. The common butterwort is one of two native butterwort species in the British Isles and has purple flowers and yellow-green leaves resembling a starfish. The common butterwort the leaf margins curl over insects and glands on the leaf secrete enzymes which digest the soft parts of their prey.

The common butterwort is locally common in Britain and Ireland. It is more often found in the north and west of Britain and is absent from most of central and southern England. In the Yorkshire Dales National Park it is commonly seen growing alongside bird’s-eye primrose and grass-of-Parnassus on good limestone flush habitats, for example, on the Malham Tarn National Nature Reserve in the Limestone Country of the south west of the Park.