[3] A species of butterwort, it forms summer rosettes of flat, succulent leaves up to 10 centimeters (4 in) long, which are covered in mucilaginous (sticky) glands that attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey.

In the winter the plant forms a non-carnivorous rosette of small, fleshy leaves that conserves energy while food and moisture supplies are low.

The generic name Pinguicula is derived from the Latin pinguis (meaning "fat") due to the buttery texture of the surface of the carnivorous leaves.

During the summer when rain and insect prey are most plentiful, the plant forms a ground hugging rosette composed of 6–8 generally obovate leaves, each up to 95 millimeters (3+3⁄4 in) long.

[8] These leaves are carnivorous, having a large surface area densely covered with stalked mucilaginous glands with which they attract, trap, and digest arthropod prey, most commonly flies.

[9][10][11] In the summer these appear in June, peak in August and September, and disappear with the return to the winter rosette in October or November.

[4] The leaf blades of the summer rosettes of P. moranensis are smooth, rigid, and succulent, varying from bright yellow-green to maroon in colour.

On contact with an insect, the peduncular glands release additional mucilage from special reservoir cells located at the base of their stalks.

P. moranensis can bend its leaf edges slightly by thigmotropism, bringing additional glands into contact with the trapped insect.

These are borne singly on upright flower stalks which are green to brown-green in color and usually, like the upper surface of the carnivorous leaves, are densely covered in glandular hairs; the peduncles do, in fact, trap insect prey.

The throat, the portion of the flower near the attachment point which holds the reproductive organs, is funnel shaped, and the petals flare out from there into a five-lobed zygomorphic corolla.

Below the attachment point to the stem the petals are fused into a 15–30 millimeter long spur which protrudes backwards roughly perpendicular to the rest of the flower.

The floral tube that houses the reproductive organs and is visible at the base of corolla lobes is white or lilac in color and 4–6 millimeters (5⁄32–1⁄4 in.)

[19] Sergio Zamudio Ruiz, in his 2001 revision of the section Orcheosanthus, called the identity and exact delimitation of P. moranensis "perhaps the most difficult problem to solve within the genus".

Prior to Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland's Latin American expedition in 1799–1804, only 8 Pinguicula species were known to science — 5 from Europe, 2 from North America and P. involuta from Peru.

In 1844, a French-Swiss botanist by the name of Alphonse Pyrame de Candolle (who created the first Code of Botanical Nomenclature) proposed a division of the genus into three sections based on floral morphology.

[22] The section Orcheosanthus grew as Charles Morren described P. flos-mulionis in 1872, Eugene Fournier added P. sodalium in 1873 and Sander proposed P. bakeriana in 1881.

[2] In 1879–1888, however, botanist William Hemsley, after studying multiple specimens in herbariums and in culture, came to the conclusion that all the taxa placed in the section Orcheosanthus up to that point belonged to the same single species.

Sprague in 1928 proposed that the species joined by Hemsley were probably distinct, but that they were likely so interrelated that distinguishing between them would require observing characteristics that were usually or always indistinct in dried specimens.

[24] Sprague recognized eight species in the section: P. moranensis H.B.K, P. caudata Schltdl., P. oblongiloba, P. flos-mulionis, P. bakeriana, a P. moranensis-like P. rosei described by Watson in 1911, and the very distinct P.

Using molecular data, they were able to isolate those morphological characteristics that were synapomorphies for various groups, providing evidence for a genetically based taxonomic structure.

[11] In further disagreement with Zamudio's 2001 revision of the section Orcheosanthus, Cieslak et al.'s phylogenetic data indicated that P. rectifolia and several unnamed taxa that had been treated as synonyms of P. moranensis are in fact a distinct complex.

[11] A more thorough study analyzing numerous P. moranensis populations and other members of closely related taxa is needed to resolve this complex.

After extensively studying P. moranensis in habitat, Zamudio (1999) came to the conclusion that the species could be divided into two distinct varieties, mainly on the basis of the shape of the leaves composing their winter (resting) rosettes:[4] This variety has open winter rosettes composed of leaves which are spatulate in shape and have an obtuse or rounded end.

[4] It is also the most common and widely distributed Pinguicula species in Mexico, being found in all the major mountain ranges except Sierra Madre Occidental and Baja California.

[16] Locations are known from the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Puebla, Distrito Federal, Veracruz, México, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Morelos, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala, Quintana Roo, and Michoacán and the Guatemalan departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Sololá, Chimaltenango, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala and El Progreso.

However, its distribution penetrates into tropical forests and xerophytic shrublands, as well as in gorges and canyon walls with high environmental humidity.

P. moranensis prefers humid and shady environments, such as slopes by streams, gullies, or road cuts, or among leaf litter in sandy soil high in organic matter.

Since its roots do little more than provide anchorage, the plant requires little or no soil, and dense clusters can be found clinging onto boulders, moss or crags in rock faces, or even epiphytically on tree trunks.

Most growers use an open soil mix composed of some combination of washed sand, perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, gypsum and/or decomposed granite.