PICKEREL WEED FAMILY. Pontederiacem. 



PICKEREL WEED FAMILY. Pontederiacece. 



Aquatic herbs with perfect (i. e. having stamens and pis- 

 til), more or less irregular flowers issuing from a spathe or 

 leaflike envelop, which are mostly fertihzed by insects. 



A tall plant with one blunt arrowhead- 

 Pickerel Weed j^ . ^^^^ green, thick leaf, varying to 

 Pontederia cor- ^ ' ® , . , , ■, 



^^f^ a very elongated triangle shape, and a 



Light violet- showy flower-spike about 4 inches long, 

 blue crowded w4th ephemeral, violet-blue 



June-Septem- f^^^^^j.^ which are marked with a distinct 



yellow-green spot. Immediately below 

 the spike is the small spathe. Sometimes the flowers 

 are white. The flower-cup is funnel-formed and six- 

 divided, the upper three divisions united, and the three 

 lower ones spread apart. The six stamens are three of 

 them long and protruding, and three short which are 

 often abortive ; the blue anthers are so placed that it is 

 impossible for an insect to enter the flower-cup without 

 brushing against them and detaching the pollen. The 

 fruit is a bladderlike receptacle containing one seed. The. 

 plant is named for Giulio Pontedera, a professor of 

 botany at Padua about 1730. Pickerel weed grows 1-3 

 feet high, and is commonly found in the shallows of ponds 

 and sluggish streams, sometimes associated with the 

 arrowhead. The deer in the Adirondack region fre- 

 quent the lake shores to feed upon it. 

 Mud Plantain ^ small water plant with deep green, 

 Heteranthera floating, round-kidney-shaped leaves on 

 renifonnis long stems, and 2-5 white or pale blue per- 



White or bluish ^^^^^y. developed flowers, which, Hke those 



of the preceding species, are exceedingly 

 short-lived. The tiny flowers proceed from a spathe or 

 leafy enclosure projecting from the sheathed side of a 

 leaf-stem. The flower-cup shows six nearly equal 

 divisions spread above its slender tube. Tlie plant is 

 named for its unlike anthers, ^rf/oa different, andavBT^pd 

 anther ; the specific renifonnis means kidney-formed, 

 in allusion to the shape of the leaf. It grows about 12 

 inches high, in mud or shallow water, from Conn, to 

 N. J., and west to Kan., Neb., and La. 



