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.

Common Name: WATER HYACINTH
Habit: Perennial herb [annual], generally free-floating. Stem: stout, erect, often connected by stolons. Leaf: +- in basal rosette; blade generally ovate, round or cordate; petiole inflated or not, generally > blade. Inflorescence: spike [panicle, 1-flowered]. Flower: +- bilateral; perianth funnel-shaped, lobes 6; stamens 6, unequal in length; ovary 3-chambered.
Species In Genus: +- 7 species: native to America tropics, perhaps Am subtropics, Africa; some widely naturalized. Etymology: (J.A.F. Eichhorn, Germany, 1779--1856)