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Vascular Plants of California
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Heteranthera
MUD PLANTAIN

Higher Taxonomy
Family: PontederiaceaeView DescriptionDichotomous Key

Common Name: PICKEREL-WEED FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, submersed, emergent, floating, or on wet ground. Leaf: simple, alternate or whorled, +- in basal rosette or not; blade linear (especially underwater) to round, sometimes sagittate or cordate, base generally sheathing, veins parallel; petiole inflated or not. Inflorescence: raceme, spike, panicle, or 1-flowered, terminal but often appearing +- axillary, subtended by sheathing bract. Flower: bisexual, radial or +- bilateral; perianth lobes 6 (in 2 series) [3,4], petal-like; stamens 3, 6 (in 2 series) [1,4], from various levels on perianth tube, equal or not, sometimes 3 sterile, modified; ovary superior, 1 or 3-chambered. Fruit: many-seeded, loculicidal capsule [1-seeded utricle]. Seed: < 1 cm, longitudinally ribbed [or not].
Genera In Family: +- 6 genera, 30 species: most pantropical, some temperate. Note: Some cultivated as orns, some weeds, especially in rice fields. Pontederia cordata L. establishes from garden waste.
eFlora Treatment Author: Charles N. Horn & Elizabeth McClintock
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.
Heteranthera
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, generally submersed, emergent, or on wet ground. Stem: +- erect, slender, elongate, +- spreading, rooting at nodes or stout. Leaf: alternate, linear, sessile, or +- in basal rosettes, +- ovate [cordate, reniform]; petiole 0 or not inflated, generally > blade. Inflorescence: generally 1-flowered. Flower: +- radial or bilateral; perianth salverform, lobes 6; stamens 3, alike or of 2 sizes, shapes, anthers coiled or not; ovary 1-chambered.
Species In Genus: +- 12 species: tropics, temperate America, Africa. Etymology: (Greek: different, anther, from unequal anthers of most species) Note: Flowers developed underwater generally cleistogamous; Heteranthera rotundifolia (Kunth) Griseb. (flowers peduncled; leaves generally not in basal rosette; closely related to Heteranthera limosa) a weed in rice fields in Butte, Yuba cos., possibly elsewhere.
Jepson eFlora Author: Charles N. Horn & Elizabeth McClintock
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
Key to Heteranthera

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Citation for this treatment: Charles N. Horn & Elizabeth McClintock 2012, Heteranthera, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=9828, accessed on April 19, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on April 19, 2024.