I found this single patch of Utricularia in the Kosciuszko National Park all with malformed flowers. All the blooms had duplicated palate ridges and ruffled corollas, and many specimens had ‘twin’ blooms comprising two fused flowers. Initially, I thought that the plants were U. beaugleholei subsp. orientalis due to the crowded palate ridges but closer examination revealed otherwise. The quadrate lower spur on the bracts, oval terrestrial leaves and subalpine habitat are all indicators of U. dichotoma subsp. dichotoma.

I can only speculate as to why this patch was aberrant – Utrics are rather prone to genetic drift with isolated populations often displaying strange morphologies such as three-lobed lower corolla lips, upturned corollas and malformed blooms. This population was however interspersed amongst other patches of U. dichotoma which displayed a typical morphology. Pathogen damage to the meristem can also lead to deformations but is typically not propagated through seed; while it is possible that this patch is clonal, the number of plants leads me to think that the patch emerged from a seeding event. Perhaps this was just a chance mutation in the genome that is particularly vigorous.