Alismaceae
Read about Alismaceae in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Alismaceae (from the genus Alisma, the Greek name). Water-plantain Family. Fig. 7. Herbaceous marsh plants with milky juice: leaves mostly basal, sheathing, with a scale in the axil; blade various, floating or erect, often sagittate, varying in size and width with the depth of the water, palmately parallel-veined with cross veinlets: flowers bisexual or unisexual, regular, hypogynous, in whorls of 3; sepals 3, more or less hyaline; petals 3, white and petaloid; stamens 6 to many, in several whorls; carpels very many, separate or rarely coherent, spirally arranged or in a whorl, 1-ovuled, rarely 2-5-ovuled: fruit dry, rarely dehiscent; seed basal, anatropous, exalbuminous; embryo curved. The family has 10 genera and about 50 species, distributed throughout the warmer and temperate zones. The family is related to the Butomaceae and Juncaginaceae, which are all peculiar in having an axillary intravaginal scale. The whorled flowers, differentiated perianth, numerous carpels, and mostly solitary, basal, exalbuminous seeds are distinctive. The acrid juice formerly led to the occasional use of these plants in medicine. The tubers and rhizomes of Sagittaria were eaten by the American Indians as wappato, and are cultivated in China. They are said to come into the Chinese market at San Francisco, preserved in liquid. Two genera are in cultivation for water-gardens: Alisma (Water Plantain), native; and Sagittaria (Arrowhead), some native.CH
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Genus
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Alismaceae. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
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