An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions/Pontederiaceae
Family 19.
Pontederiàceae
Dumort.
Anal. Fam. 59.
1829.
Pickerel-Weed Family.
Perennial aquatic or bog plants, the leaves petioled, with thick blades, or long and grass-like. Flowers perfect, more or less irregular, solitary or spiked, subtended by leaf-like spathes. Perianth free from the ovary, corolla-like, 6-parted. Stamens 3 or 6, inserted on the tube or the base of the perianth; filaments filiform, dilated at the base or thickened at the middle; anthers 2-celled, linear-oblong or rarely ovate. Ovary 3-celled with axile placentae, or 1-celled with 3 parietal placentae; style filiform or columnar; stigma terminal, entire or minutely toothed; ovules anatropous, numerous, sometimes only 1 of them perfecting. Fruit a many-seeded capsule, or a 1-celled, 1-seeded utricle. Endosperm of the seed copious ; embryo central, cylindric.
About 5 genera and 25 species, inhabiting fresh water in the warm and temperate regions of America, Asia and Africa.