Flora of North America species comparison

woody stocks, acaulescent, or erect to prostrate, nodes swollen;

indument of simple hairs, capitate glands that may secrete water or calcium salts, or multicelled glandlike structures.

all in basal rosettes, living at anthesis, to 30 cm;

petiole winged distally, to 18 cm, usually exceeding blade;

blade round to broadly ovate or subcordate, to 15 × 9 cm, leathery, base subtruncate (abruptly narrowed) and then decurrent, margins entire, apex cuspidate, cusp to 5 mm, soon falling;

main lateral veins pinnate.

often basal, alternate, spiralled;

stipules absent;

petiole present or absent;

blade linear to broadly obovate, ovate, or round, margins entire or lobed.

axes not winged, to 100 cm × 7 mm, glabrous to puberulent (hairs ca. 0.1 mm); nonflowering branches absent;

spikelets moderately to densely aggregated at tips of branches, internodes mostly 2–4 mm; subtending bracts 3–6 mm, acute or aristate (outer) to truncate (inner), ciliate or fimbriate at margins, surfaces glabrous or minutely appressed-pubescent;

flowers 1–2 per spikelet.

terminal or axillary cymes, panicles, racemes, or corymbs, or solitary heads;

bracts herbaceous, scarious, sometimes absent;

involucral bracteoles (epicalyces) immediately subtending calyces usually present.

absent or present (short).

calyx blue-purple in distal 1/2, with reddish brown, glabrous ribs, funnelform;

tube ca. 5 mm, minutely pubescent along proximal end of ribs (hairs less than 0.1 mm);

lobes spreading, ca. 5 mm (5 main lobes with shallower lobes between larger lobes), or lobes indistinct and calyx appearing erose or irregularly lobed at mouth;

petals whitish, barely exceeding calyx.

bisexual, radially symmetric;

perianth and androecium hypogynous;

sepals persistent in mature fruits, 5, connate into 5- or 10-ribbed tube, mostly dry and membranous, sometimes petaloid, toothed or with distinct simple or lobed limbs;

petals 5, nearly distinct, connate at bases or for most of their length (corolla salverform);

blade clawed or claw absent, margins entire;

corona absent;

stamens 5;

filaments adnate to bases of petals or free;

ovary superior, 1-locular, placentation basal;

ovules 1 per ovary, anatropous, bitegmic, crassinucellate;

styles 1 with apically lobed stigma, or 5, each with linear stigma.

utricles, achenes, or capsules.

1, embryo straight, endosperm present or absent.

4–5 mm.

= 14.