Common Name: WATERLEAF FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, generally hairy, generally taprooted. Stem: prostrate to erect. Leaf: simple to pinnately compound, basal or cauline, alternate or opposite; stipules 0. Inflorescence: cyme, generally raceme-like and coiled, or flowers 1. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; calyx lobes generally 5, generally fused at base, generally persistent, enlarging in fruit; corolla rotate to cylindric, generally deciduous, lobes generally 5, appendages in pairs on tube between filaments or 0; stamens generally 5, epipetalous, filament base sometimes appendaged, appendages scale-like; ovary generally superior, chambers 1 or 2, placentas 2, parietal, enlarged into chamber, sometimes meeting so ovary appears 2--5-chambered, style 1, style branches 2, stigmas generally head-like. Fruit: capsule, generally loculicidal; valves generally 2.
Genera In Family: 12 genera, 240--260 species: especially western US; some cultivated (Emmenanthe, Nemophila, Phacelia). Note: Included in Boraginaceae in TJM2 and some other treatments (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV 2016 Bot J Linn Soc 181:1--20) but treated as separate family (excluding Namaceae) by Boraginales Working Group (Luebert et al. 2016).
eFlora Treatment Author: Genevieve K. Walden, Robert W. Patterson & Richard R. Halse, except as specified
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin

Habit: Perennial herb [annual], +- scapose, base bulb-like from widened, overlapping petioles or base from tubers [taproot]; herbage +- glabrous to generally sparse-soft-hairy. Stem: ascending to erect. Leaf: generally in basal rosette, simple, palmate-lobed [pinnate-lobed], long-petioled, +- succulent; cauline alternate [opposite], proximal short-petioled, distal +- sessile. Inflorescence: cyme, simple or raceme-like, open, terminal; pedicels long; flowers sometimes replaced by bulblets in R. californica and R. tracyi. Flower: calyx lobes 5(6), equal, alike in shape, +- enlarged in fruit, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate or oblong; corolla bell- to funnel-shaped, tube and throat white or yellow, lobes white, sometimes marked yellow; corolla scales 0; nectary glands present or reduced; stamens included, unequal, 2 long, 3 short, filaments equally attached, not widened at base, not appendaged, not winged; ovary chamber appearing 2, style 1, included, branches reduced and appearing 0, stigmas entire. Fruit: oblong or obovoid. Seed: many, ovoid or ellipsoid, angled, brown, pitted; attached fleshy structure 0.
Etymology: Count N.P. Romanzoff, 1754--1826, promoter of Russian expedition to California in 1816
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert W. Patterson & Richard R. Halse