Description :

• Robust aquatic shrubs up to 2 m tall, forming dense, strongly rooted stands, stoloniferous and caulescent with leaves in dense, apical rosettes
• Stems persistent, branched at base, densely covered with reticulate, fibrous, dark leaf remains
• Leaves linear-acuminate, ± 1 m long, margin and keel sharply serrate to serrulate, with a tubular sheathing base
• Inflorescence a large, much-branched terminal panicle on a long, trigonous peduncle; each branchlet bearing few- to many-flowered lateral fascicles supported by funnel-shaped, caudate bracts diminishing in size upwards
• Flowers bisexual, regular, small, pedicellate
• Perianth 3 + 3; segments free, equal, ovate, rigid, brown
• Stamens 3 + 3, as long as perianth segments or longer and exserted; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, basifixed, with opposing thecae opening lengthwise
• Ovary superior, 3-locular, ovoid, with 3-6 ovules in each locule on axile placentas; style short or 0; stigmatic branches long, papillate
• Capsule enclosed in perianth, ovoid-acute, 3-valved
• Seeds 1 or 2 per locule, ovoid-oblong

Nomenclature:

• Prionium E.Mey.
  • Meyer: 131 (1832)
  • Brown: 28 (1897)
  • Obermeyer: 71 (1985)
  • Munro & Linder: 43 (1998)
  • Cook: 108 (1990)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1: Prionium serratum (L.f.) Drège ex E.Mey., endemic to the Western and Eastern Cape as well as S KwaZulu-Natal
  • Common in river beds around the coast, extending inland as far as Tulbagh in the Western Cape