Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Sagittaria lancifolia L.
- Family: Water Plantain (Alismataceae)
- Flowering: May-June
- Field Marks: This arrowhead differs from others by its leathery, elliptic leaves which lack the lower pointed lobes of most arrowheads, and its smooth bracts.
- Habitat: Swamps and ponds, usually somewhat brackish, often in shallow water.
- Habit: Perennial herb with stout rhizomes.
- Stems: Upright, smooth, bearing only the flowers, up to 4 feet tall, longer than the leaves.
- Leaves: Basal, erect, linear to elliptic to ovate, not arrowhead-shaped or lobed, smooth, leathery, up to 15 inches long, up to 8 inches wide; leaf stalks spongy.
- Flowers: Male and female flowers borne separately on the same plant, arranged in whorls of 5-12; bracts smooth, up to 1/2 inch long.
- Sepals: 3, green, smooth, turned downward, up to 1/2 inch long.
- Petals: 3, white, free from each other, up to 1 inch long.
- Stamens: Numerous.
- Pistils: Numerous; ovaries superior.
- Fruits: Achenes crowded into spherical heads up to 1 inch in diameter, the achenes up to 1/8 inch long, winged, with a curved beak.
- Notes: Some botanists combine this species with S. falcata.
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