Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

Plantago L. -- Plantain

Low, acaulescent, perennial herbs (those included here) with simple, petiolate leaves in basal rosettes and numerous small flowers in long, scapose, bracteate spikes. Flowers greenish to stramineous, perfect, 4-merous, regular, or the calyx slightly irregular; sepals scarious-margined; corolla salverform, membranous, persistent, the tube enclosing the top of the capsule, the lobes spreading to reflexed; stamens 4, epipetalous, exserted; style strongly exserted, stigmatic for most of its length, ovary superior. Fruit a circumscissile capsule containing 2-many seeds.

Lead	Characteristic	Go To
1	Bracts subtending the flowers rounded on the back; corolla lobes 1 mm or more long; seeds 2-4 per capsule, 2-3 mm long.	P. eriopoda
1	Bracts subtending the flowers keeled on the back; corolla lobes less than 1 mm long; seeds 6-30 per capsule, 0.8-1.5 mm long.	P. major

44. Plantaginaceae, the Plantain Family

1. Plantago L. -- Plantain

1. Plantago eriopoda Torr. -- Alkali plantain

2. Plantago major L. -- Common plantain

Return to Family -- Plantaginaceae - The Plantain Family
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