Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
Plantago L. -- Plantain
Low, acaulescent, perennial herbs (those included here) with simple, petiolate leaves in basal rosettes and numerous small flowers in long, scapose, bracteate spikes. Flowers greenish to stramineous, perfect, 4-merous, regular, or the calyx slightly irregular; sepals scarious-margined; corolla salverform, membranous, persistent, the tube enclosing the top of the capsule, the lobes spreading to reflexed; stamens 4, epipetalous, exserted; style strongly exserted, stigmatic for most of its length, ovary superior. Fruit a circumscissile capsule containing 2-many seeds.
Lead | Characteristic | Go To |
1 | Bracts subtending the flowers rounded on the back; corolla lobes 1 mm or more long; seeds 2-4 per capsule, 2-3 mm long. | P. eriopoda |
1 | Bracts subtending the flowers keeled on the back; corolla lobes less than 1 mm long; seeds 6-30 per capsule, 0.8-1.5 mm long. | P. major |
Return to Family -- Plantaginaceae - The Plantain Family
Return to Contents