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Vascular Plants of California
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Alisma
WATER-PLANTAIN

Higher Taxonomy
Family: AlismataceaeView DescriptionDichotomous Key

Common Name: WATER-PLANTAIN FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb from caudices, corms, stolons, rhizomes, or tubers, aquatic (+- emergent or on mud); roots fibrous, septate or not; monoecious, dioecious, or flowers bisexual. Stem: caudex short. Leaf: basal, simple, palmately veined, floating or not; submersed generally linear to ovate; emergent linear to sagittate. Inflorescence: generally scapose, umbel-, raceme-, or panicle-like; flowers, branches whorled. Flower: radial; sepals 3, generally green, generally persistent; petals 3, generally > sepals, white or pink; stamens 6--many; pistils 6--many, free or +- fused at base. Fruit: achene, generally compressed, beaked.
Genera In Family: +- 12 genera, 75--100 species: especially tropics, subtropics.
eFlora Treatment Author: Charles E. Turner, Robert R. Haynes & C. Barre Hellquist
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.
Alisma
Habit: Perennial herb; roots not septate; flowers bisexual. Leaf: blade linear to ovate, tapered to base or petioled, base tapered to truncate, rounded, or +- lobed. Inflorescence: peduncle generally smooth; pedicels < 45 mm in fruit. Flower: receptacle +- flat; sepals generally 1--4 mm; petals entire to +- cut, white or pink; stamens generally 6; pistils many, free, in 1 whorl on margin of +- flat receptacle. Fruit: body generally 1.5--3 mm, erect, generally strongly compressed, lateral walls opaque to translucent, abaxially thin-ridged; beak < body, generally lateral.
Species In Genus: +- 9 species: generally northern temperate. Etymology: (Greek: ancient name) Note: North American species need study.
Jepson eFlora Author: Charles E. Turner, Robert R. Haynes & C. Barre Hellquist
Unabridged Reference: Bjorkqvist 1968 Opera Bot 19:1--138
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
Key to Alisma

Previous taxon: Alismataceae
Next taxon: Alisma gramineum

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Citation for this treatment: Charles E. Turner, Robert R. Haynes & C. Barre Hellquist 2012, Alisma, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=11437, 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.