Flora of North America species comparison

thin, rhizomes short, subterranean, bearing cleistogamous flowers produced from base of plant.

ascending to decumbent or occasionally scrambling.

leaf sheaths, not auriculate, often with red hairs at summit;

blade ovate to lanceolate-elliptic, (1–)2–9(–11) × 1–3(–4.5) cm, apex rounded, obtuse or acute, pubescent.

basal or cauline, alternate;

sheaths closed;

blade simple, often succulent, margins entire, venation parallel.

distal cyme often exserted and 1-flowered, sometimes vestigial;

spathes often clustered, subsessile (peduncles 1–3.5 mm), funnelform, 0.5–1.5(–2) cm, margins connate basally, pubescent.

terminal or terminal and axillary [sometimes all axillary], sometimes becoming leaf-opposed, cymose (cymes scorpioid), thyrsiform or variously reduced, sometimes umbel-like, sometimes enclosed in spathaceous bracts.

chasmogamous flowers bisexual and staminate, subterranean cleistogamous flowers bisexual;

petals of staminate flowers all blue (rarely lilac), proximal smaller;

lateral stamen filaments not winged;

staminodes 2–3;

antherodes yellow, cruciform;

pollen white;

medial stamen pollen yellow.

bisexual or bisexual and staminate on same plants, rarely bisexual and pistillate on same plants [bisexual and unisexual (staminate and pistillate), all on same plants], bilaterally or radially symmetric;

sepals 3, sepaloid [occasionally petaloid], distinct or occasionally connate, usually subequal;

petals 3, deliquescent, petaloid, distinct or connate, equal or unequal;

stamens 6, all fertile or some staminodial or absent (rarely all stamens absent);

anthers with longitudinal [rarely poricidal] dehiscence;

ovary superior, 2–3-locular;

ovules 1-seriate [2-seriate];

style 1, simple, usually slender;

stigma 1, simple [rarely slightly 3-lobed], enlarged or not.

loculicidal capsules [rarely indehiscent or berries].

3-locular, 2-valved, 4–6 mm.

5, brown or blackish, seeds of adaxial locule 1.7–2.5 mm, shallowly reticulate, farinose.

1–several [rarely many] per locule;

hilum dotlike or linear; lidlike embryotega covering embryo.

= 22.