Description :

• Perennial, herbaceous, scapose, glabrous marsh plants
• Rhizome stoloniferous or bulbous, covered with fibres from old leaves
• Roots fibrous, with spongy outer covering that soon disintegrates, leaving the thin wiry stele; lateral roots thin, with long root hairs
• Leaves basal, distichous, rush-like, cylindrical to setaceous, glaucous, somewhat succulent, forming a broad open sheath below; ligule present at junction of sheath and lamina; axillary scales minute, linguiform
• Inflorescence a simple raceme overtopping leaves; scape terete, firm
• Flowers regular or somewhat irregular, bisexual or unisexual, protogynous, anemophilous, ebracteate, on decurrent, erecto-patent pedicels
• Perianth 3 + 3; green, inner segments raised above outer whorl, shell-shaped with a stamen contained in the hollow, segment and stamen semipersistent, falling together
• Stamens 3 + 3; anthers sessile, epipetalous, 2-thecous, dorsifixed, dehiscing longitudinally; pollen globose
• Ovary superior; carpels 6 or outer whorl suppressed, ± connate, each containing 1 basal anatropous ovule; styles short or 0; stigmas plumose
• Fruit ± globose to cylindrical, sometimes spurred below, of usually 3 follicles separating upwards from a central columella
• Seeds erect; embryo straight; endosperm 0
• x = 12 (7, 8, 9, 10) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Triglochin L.
  • Linnaeus: 338 (1753)
  • Bennett: 41 (1897)
  • Obermeyer: 92 (1966)
  • Cook: 109 (1990)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 15, cosmopolitan
• Southern Africa : Species 2, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape, in marshy areas along the coast or in shallow water around the edges of inland waters