Small, herbaceous, glabrous, aquatic or semi-aquatic annuals
Leaves
decussate or verticillate, margin entire or serrulate; stipules small, deciduous
Flowers
solitary in leaf axils, sessile or pedicels up to 5 mm long, very small, often cleistogamous; bracts 0
Sepals
2-4, connate below, midrib indistinct, margin not membranous
Petals
3 or 4, free, larger than sepals, white or pink
Stamens
as many as, or twice as many as petals
Ovary
globose, 3- or 4-locular; styles 3 or 4, minute, situated on depressed apex of ovary
Capsule
globose, membranous, dissepiments remaining attached to central axis as wings
Seeds
numerous, straight or bent to horseshoe-shaped, tesselate
x = 9 or 12 (high polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Elatine
L.
Linnaeus: 367 (1753)
Linnaeus: 172 (1754)
Wild: 377 (1961)
Obermeyer: 30 (1976)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Cosmopolitan with ± 12 species occurring in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions as aquatics or in moist situations
Southern Africa
: Species 2, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
LINNAEUS, C. 1753.
Species plantarum
1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
LINNAEUS, C. 1754.
Genera plantarum
, edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
OBERMEYER, A.A. 1976.
Elatinaceae
.
Flora of southern Africa
22
WILD, H. 1961.
Elatinaceae
.
Flora zambesiaca
1
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Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
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