Giant Butterwort
Ease to Grow: Easy
Dormancy: No
Native Range: Highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico
Zones: 10-11 (8-12)
The Giant Butterwort, Pinguicula gigantea, is the largest of the butterwort species. It is an easy to grow mexican butterwort with very large, buttery yellow leaves that are broad and arching. Its thick and succulent leaves have a rounded spoon-like shape. It is the only butterwort with sticky digestive glands on both the top and underside surfaces. It can be quite sticky, and a challenge to handle. Unlike other mexican butterwort kin, it has carnivorous leaves year round. It prefers damp, loose, alkaline soils, and partial shade with warm, wet Summers and cooler, dry Winters. In its native habitat, it is found growing in the moist crevices of vertical limestone cliffs. It flowers in late Spring with several pale blue violet flowers. It benefits from the addition of a small amount of pellet limestone added to the soil (1 teaspoon/4" pot). The Giant Butterwort is a wonderful house plant, doing well on window sills, plant carts and greenhouses. Our Giant Butterworts are propagated from leaf pulls.
Plants are shipped bare-root. Photographs are representative of species, and not the specific plant shipped.
Width: 1-6+"
Plant Type: Perennial, Tropical
Soil: Tropical Butterwort Mix
Light: Bright to partial bright indoors, partial sun outdoors
Use: Grows well indoors and greenhouse. It is an excellent terrarium plant.
