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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

42. Hippuridaceae, the Mare's-tail Family

1. Hippuris L. -- Mare's-tail

1. Hippuris vulgaris L.

Aquatic or amphibious perennial from stout, spongy rhizomes, 1-5 dm tall above the mud or water surface; stems simple, erect or sometimes curved and recurved, densely clothed by the closely spaced whorls of leaves. Leaves in whorls of 6-12, sessile, the emersed ones linear to linear-oblong, 0.8-2.5 cm long, 0.5-3 mm wide, blunt-tipped; submersed leaves, when present, thin and flaccid, mostly more elongate than the emersed leaves. Flowers perfect, minute, sessile and solitary in the upper axils, often not produced; calyx and corolla lacking; stamen 1, attached at the summit of a hypanthium; style 1, filiform, appearing alongside the stamen, ovary inferior, completely enclosed by the hypanthium, 1-celled, 1-ovuled. Fruit nutlike, ellipsoid, 1.5-2 mm long, 0.8-1 mm thick. Jun--Sep. Shallow water or mud of marshes, lakes, streams and ditches; frequent in most of ND, ne and the Black Hills, SD, otherwise rare; (Circumboreal, in N.Amer. s to ME, NY, IN, IA, NE, NM and AZ).

Map key

Return to Family -- Hippuridaceae - The Mare's-tail Family

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