ALISMATACEAE (Water Plantain Family)

Plants annual or perennial. Leaves basal, with a well-developed petiole expanded into an open sheathing base, the blade sometimes reduced or absent, glabrous (pubescent elsewhere). Inflorescences panicles, racemes, or umbels. Flowers opposite or whorled, subtended by bracts, actinomorphic, perfect or unisexual. Sepals 3, green. Petals 3, white, sometimes pink or with reddish bases, dropping soon after flowers open. Stamens 6 to many. Pistils separate, 3 to many, in a ring or in a dense, headlike cluster on an expanded receptacle. Style 1 per pistil, terminal or lateral, the stigma decurrent. Ovaries superior, with 1 ovule. Fruits achenes. Eleven genera, 95 species, nearly worldwide, mostly emergent aquatics. Members of this family are important food plants for waterfowl and other wetland animals.