46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In rich soil, mostly in woods and thickets, from southern New York, 

 ( )hio and South Dakota, south to Virginia and Arkansas. A common 

 plant in cultivation farther north where it is a frequent escape to roadsides 

 and fence rows. Although of great beauty, the flowers are of brief duration, 

 and the delicate petals soon wither, the flowers being followed by others 

 until all the numerous buds of each cluster have bloomed. With us it 

 usually flowers in June and July or sometimes as late as August, especially 

 since not all the stems appear to reach maturity at the same time. 



Pickerel Weed Family 



Pontederiaceae 



Pickerel Weed 



Pontederia cordata Linnaeus 



Plate 8 



A perennial aquatic herb, rising from a thick, horizontal rootstock, 

 with thick, glossy, dark-green, ovate to lanceolate leaves, cordate-sagittate, 

 truncate or narrowed at the base, 2 to 10 inches long, 1 to 6 inches wide, 

 the apex and basal lobes obtuse. Flowering stems erect, 1 to 4 feet tall, 

 glandular-pubescent above, one-leaved, with several sheathing, bractlike 

 leaves at the base. Flowers blue, ephemeral, numerous, in a dense head 

 or spike (spadix) subtended by a thin bractlike spathe. Each flower is 

 tubular, about one-fourth of an inch long, curved, two-lipped, the upper 

 lip composed of three ovate lobes, of which the middle one is the longest, 

 and with two yellow spots at the base within, the lower lip of three linear- 

 oblong spreading lobes. Stamens six, the filaments, anthers and style 

 bright blue. After flowering, the lobes and upper part of the perianth tube 

 wither above, while the persistent base hardens around the fruit. 



Frequent along the borders of ponds and streams and shallow margins 

 of lakes, where it flowers from June to September, usually at its best in 

 August. One of the most attractive of our native aquatic plants. 



The Pickerel Weed belongs to the Pontederiaceae, represented in 

 our flora by but one other genus, the Mud Plantains (Heteranthera), with 



