1. T. palústris, L. Scape (6–18´ high) and leaves slender; sepals and stamens 6; fruit linear-club-shaped; carpels when ripe separating from below upward, leaving a triangular axis, awl-pointed at base.—Marshes, western N. Y. to Ill., Minn., and westward. Aug. (Eu., Asia, etc.)
2. T. striàta, Ruiz & Pav. Scape (6–12´ high) and leaves slender; flowers very small; sepals and stamens 3; fruit globose-triangular, or when dry 3-lobed. (T. triandra, Michx.)—Sea-shore, Md. to Fla. (S. Am., etc.)
[*][*] Fruit of 6 carpels (rarely 5).
3. T. marítima, L. Scape (1–3° high) and leaves thickish, fleshy; fruit ovate or oblong, acutish; carpels rounded at base and slightly grooved on the back, the edges acute.—Salt-marshes along the coast, Lab. to N. J., and in saline places in the interior across the continent. (Eu., Asia, etc.)
2. SCHEUCHZÈRIA, L.
Sepals and petals oblong, spreading, nearly alike (greenish-yellow), but the latter narrower, persistent. Stamens 6; anthers linear. Ovaries 3, globular, slightly united at base, 2–3 ovuled, bearing flat sessile stigmas, in fruit forming 3 diverging and inflated 1–2 seeded pods, opening along the inside.—A low bog-herb, with a creeping jointed rootstock, tapering into the ascending simple stem, which is zigzag, partly sheathed by the bases of the grass-like conduplicate leaves, and terminated by a loose raceme of a few flowers, with sheathing bracts; leaves tubular at the apex. (Named for John and John Jacob Scheuchzer, distinguished Swiss botanists early in the 18th century.)
1. S. palústris, L.—Peat-bogs, N. Brunswick to N. J., westward across the continent. June. (Eu., Asia.)
3. POTAMOGÈTON, Tourn. Pondweed.
Flowers perfect. Sepals 4, rounded, valvate in the bud. Stamens 4, opposite the sepals; anthers nearly sessile, 2-celled. Ovaries 4 (rarely only one), with an ascending campylotropous ovule; stigma sessile or on a short style. Fruit drupe-like when fresh, more or less compressed; endocarp (nutlet) crustaceous. Embryo hooked, annular, or cochleate, the radicular end pointing downward.—Herbs of fresh, or one in brackish, ponds and streams, with jointed mostly rooting stems, and 2-ranked leaves, which are usually alternate or imperfectly opposite; the submersed ones pellucid, the floating ones often dilated and of a firmer texture. Stipules membranous, more or less united and sheathing. Spikes sheathed by the stipules in the bud, mostly raised on a peduncle to the surface of the water. (An ancient name, composed of ποταμός, a river, and γείτων, a neighbor, from the place of growth.)—By fruit, the full-grown fresh or macerated fruit is intended; by nutlet, that with the fleshy outer portion or epicarp removed. All except n. 19 flower in summer; the month mentioned indicates the time of ripening of the fruit.
§ 1. Leaves of two sorts; floating ones more or less coriaceous, with a dilated petioled blade, different in form from the thinner submersed ones.