Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Northern Water-Plantain is an erect native perennial semi-aquatic plant that has basal leaves and a tall flowering stem.

Leaves: The leaves are all basal, forming a rosette about one foot high. Each leaf is somewhat lance like to ovate, up to 7 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide, with a long stalk. Veins are parallel, edges are smooth, dark green in color, no hair.

The inflorescence is a tall stalk rising from the rosette, growing up to 3 feet high forming a panicle with 4 or more whorled sets of side branches. At the base of each whorl are 3 lance-shaped stipules. Side branches have one or more whorls of 3 flowers.

Each flower is 3-parted, about 1/4 to 1/3 inch wide, with 3 white petals that have rounded but unevenly cut tips, 3 green sepals that are only half as long as the petals. The base of the petals inside, have a patch of yellow. There is a central flattened receptacle that is light green. 15 to 20 distinct pistils rise in a ring form from around the receptacle. Six stamens with ovoid anthers are grouped into 3 pairs, and placed between the petals. The styles are curved and short - no longer than the ovary. Pollination is by small flies, bees and beetles.

Seed: Fertile flowers develop into a brown, round, flattened on top, seed head, 4.1 to 7 mm in diameter, with the flattened egg shaped light brown seeds positioned vertically around the central core. Each seed has a small beak.

Habitat: Northern Water Plantain requires wet mucky soil or shallow water but can survive a periodic dry condition. Full sun is best. Too little sun will result in poor to no flowering. The root system is rhizomatous.

Names: The genus, Alisma, is a Greek word for water plant. The species, triviale, is used to describe the 'common' or the 'ordinary.' All three of the native species mentioned below were formerly named as varieties or subspecies with the name of Alisma plantago-aquatica. The reclassification of species names (P. Rubtzoff 1964) reserves the name plantago-aquatica for the Eurasian variety of Water-plantain which is not found in our area nor in North America except for being introduced into Alaska. The author name for the plant classification, ‘Pursh’ refers to Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820) German-American botanist who wrote A Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America, and was the botanist who catalogued and described the plants brought back by the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark. Pursh was disliked by American botanists because he took some of these plants to New York with him and later to London treating them as his own property. He did the same years later with much material collected by Thomas Nuttall, writing it up with no credit to Nuttall. He classified this species in 1814.

Comparisons: There is another water plantain with similar structure, A. subcordatum, but there the flowers are half the size of our species and the sepals are just as long as the petals. A third species is the Narrow-leaved Water-plantain, A. gramineum, but there the leaves are narrow and not confusing with our species.