LIMNANTHACEAE 
FALSE MERMAID FAMILY 
FALSE MERMAID 
Floerkea pro 
serpinacoides Willd. 
The single genus which represents this family in IIli- 
nois was named in honor of Gustav Heinrich Florke, a 
German botanist who lived from 1790 to 1835. Two 
species compose the 
genus; both are strictly 
North American plants, 
the False Mermaid 
being eastern and the 
other occuring only in 
the west. This plant is 
called False because 
there is a true Mermaid 
Weed, Proserpinaca, of 
the Water Milfoil 
family. 
This is a rather incon- 
spicuous annual which 
grows in marshes, moist 
forests and along rivers 
from Quebec to Delaware 
and west to Wisconsin and 
Missouri. Its slender stems, 
4-15 inches long, are too 
weak to stand upright and 
so trail along the ground 
instead, or lean upon other 
plants. 
The minute flowers are 
white and bloom from April 
to June. The 3 green sepals 
are united at the base and 
remain attached to the fruit 
. The base of the calyx is filled by a 
fleshy disk having 3 very.small lobes. The 3 petals, shorter than 
the sepals, are attached to the margin of the disk and alternate 
with its lobes. There are 6 stamens, the 3 that alternate with the 
petals a little the shorter. The pistil consists of 2 or 3 ovaries 
united only at the base, and 
a style 2 or 3-lobed at the top. The 
ovaries develop into somewhat fleshy and roughened akenes. 
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