Sagittaria

  • Authority

    Bogin, Clifford. 1955. Revision of the genus Sagittaria (Alismataceae). Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 9 (2): 179-233.

  • Family

    Alismataceae

  • Scientific Name

    Sagittaria L.

  • Description

    Genus Description - Paludal or aquatic, mostly perennial, stoloniferous herbs with milky latex. Leaves emersed, floating, or submerged, with sheathing, cellular petioles, the emersed with distinct, often sagittate blades, the floating frequently with unlobed or cordate blades, the submerged without blades (i.e. phyllodia). Plants mostly monoecious, rarely dioecious. Scape erect or lax, with 1-12 mostly 3-flowered whorls, each of these subtended by a whorl of 3 bracts, occasionally with branches replacing the lower flower-whorls. Flowers mostly unisexual, with staminate above and pistillate below, the latter occasionally with a ring of functional or non-functional stamens. Pedicels ascending or divaricate, the pistillate often thickened and recurved in fruit. Sepals three, herbaceous, persistent, those of the staminate flowers reflexed, those of the pistillate in fruit appressed, spreading, or reflexed. Petals three, deciduous, white or rarely pink, occasionally with a purple spot at the base. Stamens whorled, mostly numerous, with linear, subulate, or dilated filaments and bilocular, nearly basifixed anthers. Carpels numerous, distinct, 1-celled, 1-ovuled, spirally arranged in a crowded, mostly spherical head on a dome-shaped receptacle; achenes flattened, winged, beaked, mostly membranaceous, with erect, campylotropous seeds.

  • Discussion

    Type: Sagittaria sagittifolia L. Sp. PI. 993. 1753.