1. Floerkea proserpinacoides Willd.
Pl. 445 i–k; Map
2017
Plants annual,
glabrous. Stems 5–30 cm long, erect or more commonly spreading to loosely
ascending. Leaves alternate, short- to long-petiolate. Stipules absent. Leaf
blades 2–7 cm long, pinnately deeply divided to once-compound with 3–7
leaflets, these 0.4–2.0 cm long, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, the margins
entire. Inflorescences of solitary axillary flowers. Flowers perfect,
hypogynous, long-stalked. Calyces of 3 free sepals, these 2.5–3.0 mm long at
flowering, becoming enlarged to 6 mm at fruiting, lanceolate to narrowly ovate,
narrowed to a sharply pointed tip. Corollas actinomorphic, of 3 free petals,
these 1–2 mm long, oblanceolate, white. Stamens 3–6, free, the anthers yellow.
Pistil of 2 or 3 carpels, these free nearly to the base. Ovaries superior, each
with 1 locule containing 1 ovule. Style 1, attached toward the carpel base in
the depression between the ovaries, the stigma 2-lobed. Fruits breaking apart
into achene-like mericarps, these 2.2–2.6 mm long, broadly ovoid to nearly
globose, somewhat fleshy, the surface green, finely warty. 2n=10.
April–May.
Uncommon in
eastern Missouri, west locally to Boone, Callaway, and Howard Counties
(northern U.S. south to Virginia, Louisiana, and California; Canada).
Bottomland forests.
False mermaid is
an easily overlooked species with inconspicuous flowers, often blending in with
the foliage of other spring bottomland wildflowers. Steyermark (1958b) reported
on his rediscovery of this species in Moniteau County in 1957 and of subsequent
herbarium and literature review, which led to the discovery that Edwin James,
second botanist on the Long Expedition (see the introductory chapter in Volume
1 on the history of floristic botany in Missouri), had collected the plant in
Howard County in 1820 and had written about it in the expedition’s report
(James, 1823).