Common Name: PONDWEED FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, aquatic, (generally fresh to alkaline), glabrous, from rhizomes, tubers, or winter buds. Stem: erect, simple to branched, cylindric to compressed, rooting at lower nodes; nodal glands present or not. Leaf: simple, cauline, alternate or in subopposite pairs; submersed thread-like to round, sessile or petioled; floating present or not, elliptic to ovate, petioled, leathery; sheath open, continuous with petiole or +- free from blade base, generally stipuled, stipules fused and ligule-like or not. Inflorescence: spike, cylindric to spheric, axillary or terminal, generally emergent, peduncled; bracts 0. Flower: inconspicuous, bisexual; perianth parts [0]4, clawed, +- green, limb generally adaxially concave; stamens [2]4, each fused to base of perianth part [or not], filament generally 0 [short, wide], anthers open to outside; pistils [1]4, ovary 1-chambered, ovule 1, attached to chamber base, style 0 or short. Fruit: drupe, generally obovate, sessile. Seed: 1.
Genera In Family: 3 genera, +- 95 species: worldwide. Note: Recently treated elsewhere to include Zannichelliaceae. Ruppia moved to Ruppiaceae.
eFlora Treatment Author: C. Barre Hellquist, Robert F. Thorne & Robert R. Haynes
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: PONDWEED
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, rhizomed or not, tubers 0, winter buds generally 0. Stem: simple or branched, cylindric to compressed; nodal glands present or 0. Leaf: submersed, also floating or not, generally flat, generally green, entire to finely serrate; submersed sessile or not, linear to round, tip rounded to acuminate, veins 1--35; floating 0 or generally petioled, elliptic to ovate, leathery; stipules of submersed leaves free from blade base or fused to it < 1/2 stipule length. Inflorescence: generally floating to emergent; peduncle stiff. Fruit: generally beaked, abaxially with 0 or 1 central keel, 0 or 2 lateral, sometimes lower keels, sides concave to convex.
Etymology: (Greek: river neighbor, from aquatic habitat) Note: Other taxa in TJM (1993) moved to Stuckenia.
Unabridged Reference: Haynes 1974 Rhodora 76:564--649; Haynes 1985 Sida 11:173--188; Wiegleb 1988 Fedde Rep Sp Nov Regni Veg 99:249--266; Wiegleb & Kaplan 1998, Folia Geobot 33: 241--316.