Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

43. Callitrichaceae, the Water Starwort Family

1. Callitriche L. -- Water starwort

3. Callitriche verna L.

Submersed or occasionally amphibious aquatic, sometimes growing on mud, with stems 0.5-2 dm long. Leaves typically of 2 types; submersed leaves mostly linear, 5-20 mm long, 0.3-1 mm wide, shallowly bidentate at the tip, clasping at the base with a ridge or narrow, membranous wing connecting the leaf bases; floating leaves seldom absent, mostly in terminal rosettes, obovate to oblanceolate or spatulate, 3-10 mm long, 1.5-5 mm wide, 3- to 5-nerved, rounded at the tip, tapered to a flat petiole and connected by a ridge at their bases; leaves transitional between the submersed and floating leaves usually present. Flowers subtended by a pair of hyaline bracts, these soon deciduous. Fruits higher than wide, 0.8-1.7 mm long, 0.6-1.4 mm wide, narrowly wing-margined at least toward the summit, pitted in longitudinal rows. Jun--Sep. In the same habitats as C. hermaphroditica, sometimes stranded and persisting on mud; occasional in ND, e and the Black Hills in SD, rare in c NE; (Circumboreal, in N.Amer. s to WV, OH, IL, IA, KS, NM and CA). C. palustris L.


Callitriche verna, with closeup of fruits.

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