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(Last Modified On 10/25/2012)
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(Last Modified On 10/25/2012)
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Genus
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PISTIA L.
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PlaceOfPublication
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Sp. P1. 963. 1753.
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Description
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Plants aquatic, floating on quiet water, acaulescent or nearly so, the caudex very short, often emitting stolons with new rosettes of leaves at their end, these later becoming detached from the parent plant; leaves numerous, crowded, spirally arranged and forming a rosette, thick and spongy, covered on both surfaces with short, crowded, few-celled hairs; stipular sheath free almost to the base, thin and scarious; inflorescences very small and inconspicuous, subsessile; spathes foliaceous, whitish, glabrous within, pilose outside, somewhat constricted at the middle on either side, the margins connate to the middle, the blade ovate, acute, subcucullate; spadix shorter than the spathe, adnate for two-thirds its length to the spathe, the pistillate portion 1-flowered, the staminate 2- to 8-flowered, the flowers verticillate; flowers unisexual, naked; staminate flower with 2 stamens, these short-connate, forming a sessile, oblong-ovoid synandrium slightly depressed at its apex, the anther cells opening each by 2 vertical slits; ovary monogynous, ovoid, obliquely attached to the spadix, 1-celled; ovules numerous, orthotropous, sessile, 4- to 6- seriate; style short, terminal, the stigma obtuse, subhemispheric-penicillate; fruit baccate, ovoid, many- or few-seeded, irregularly rupturing; seeds cylindroid, slightly attenuate at the base, subtruncate at the apex, excavate at the middle; endosperm copious.
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Note
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The genus consists of a single species, almost pantropic in distribution. In general appearance, as well as in structure, the plant is quite unlike any other member of the Araceae, and it constitutes a separate subfamily, Pistioideae. The morphology is discussed in detail by Engler, Pflanzenreich IV. 23F:250-258, fig. 63, 64. 1920.
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Reference
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Engler, Pflanzenreich IV. 23F:250-258, fig. 63, 64. 1920.
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