carpels, these erect or recurved only at apex, sometimes with hooked spines at 

 base. 



About 25 species in 3 genera in temperate and cold regions in both hemispheres, 



1. Triglochin L. 



Herbaceous perennial; leaves broadly sheathing at base, the sheath culminating 

 above in an entire or 2-lobed ligule, the blade semiterete; scapes and racemes 

 longer than or shorter than the leaves; each perianthlike appendage of the flower 

 usually deciduous with its attached stamen and often leaving a conspicuous en- 

 larged scar which simulates a reflexed perianth part at the base of the fruit; 

 stamens 6 to 3 (or 1), subsessile, the anthers often broader than high, rarely 

 much longer than broad; carpels joined to a central carpophore from which only 

 the fertile carpels separate at maturity; stigmas of slender papillae; seed linear, 

 loosely enclosed in the indehiscent carpel. 



About 15 species, cosmopolitan, especially Austraha and temperate South 

 America. 



1. Carpels and stigmas 3; fruit linear-clavate, the axis 3-winged; carpels subulate 

 at the base 1. T. palustre. 



1. Carpels and stigmas typically 6, occasionally 3; fruit narrowly oblong-elliptic 



to ovate-prismatic, the axis terete; carpels not subulate at base (2) 

 2(1). Rootstock covered with persistent whitish leaf bases; ligules entire or 

 essentially so, 1-5 mm. long; leaf blades somewhat obcompressed, 

 mostly 1.5-2.5 mm. wide, rarely more; fruits usually 3.5-4.5 mm. 

 long and 2-3 mm. thick 2. T. maritimum. 



2. Rootstock usually covered with coarse brownish fibers of the old leaf bases; 



ligules deeply bilobed, 0.5-1 mm. long; leaf blades almost terete, 

 1.5 mm. wide or less; fruits usually 3-3.5 mm. long and 1-2 mm. 

 thick 3. T. debilis. 



1. Triglochin palustre L. Fig. 28. 



Rootstock short, emitting filiform bulb-bearing stolons; scape to 7 dm. high, 

 terminated by an elongate laxly flowered raceme; leaves one half to three fourths 

 as long as scape, 1-2 mm. wide, sharp-pointed, the ligule 0.5-1.5 mm. long and 

 parted to the base; pedicels slender, erect in fruit and then 4-6 mm. long; perianth 

 segments about 1.5 (-2) mm. long, slightly exceeding the stamens; fruit linear- 

 clavate, mostly 6-8 mm. long, the 3 carpels separating from below upward and 

 remaining suspended from the tip, subulate at base. 



Wet meadows, bogs, mud flats and gravelly stream margins, often brackish or 

 alkaline, in N. M. (Otero, Sandoval, San Miguel and Taos cos.), June-Sept.; 

 Greenl. and Lab. to Alas., s. to Me., N. Y., 111., la., N. M., Ida. and Calif.; also 

 S. A. and Euras. 



2. Triglochin maritimum L. Fig. 54. 



Coarse or slender plant with few to many tufted scapes 1-10 dm. tall from a 

 proliferating caudex or stout short rhizome covered with persistent whitish leaf 

 bases; leaves thick, 1-8 dm. long, 2-5 mm. wide, the ligule entire and 1-5 

 mm. long; scape terminated by a raceme of numerous pedicellate flowers; pedicels 

 somewhat ascending to decurrent, 2-6 mm. long; flowers with 6 perianthlike 

 appendages each bearing an attached stamen; pistil of 6 (rarely 3) fertile carpels 

 rounded at base and united around the slender carpophore; mature fruit ovoid- 

 prismatic, 3-4.5 mm. long, 2-3 mm. thick, with carpels united, the edges acutish 

 and reflexed, the beaks recurved, indehiscent; seeds linear. Incl. var. elata (Nutt.) 

 Gray. 



Saline and alkaline wet meadows and marshes in N.M. (Colfax, Grant, Otero, 

 Sandoval, San Juan, Taos and Valencia cos.) and Ariz. (Coconino Co.), May- 

 Oct.; Lab. to Alas., s. to Pa., Ind., 111., la., N.M., Calif, and Mex.; also S.A. and 

 Euras. 



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