Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Annual or perennial plants often in wet (fresh or salt) places; with bulbous, rhizomatous or a normal rootstock; leaves distichous, basal, erect or floating, bases sheathing, with or without a ligule.

Flowers wind-pollinated, bisexual and with carpels maturing before the anthers (or unisexual and 2-merous in Tetroncium), arranged in ebracteate spikes or racemes; perianth-segments 2-6 (to 12 in Maundia), initially spiral but apparently in 2 whorls at maturity; anthers 2-6 (to 12 in Maundia), initially spiral and above the upper perianth-segments, but eventually each anther protected by one perianth-segment (due to intercalary growth of the apical meristem); anthers 2-celled, subsessile, normally falling with the protective perianth-segment; carpels 2-6 (to 8 in Maundia) initially spiral but apparently forming 2 whorls at maturity, free or partially or completely connate, each with a single erect ovule (pendulous in Maundia); stigmas subsessile, papillate.

Fruit a dry shizocarp, splitting into 2-6 achenes.

Distribution:  Generally accepted as containing 3 genera-Tetroncium (South America), Maundia (eastern Australia), and Triglochin (about 15 species, cosmopolitan, but about 11 species endemic in Australia).

Biology: No text

Author: Prepared by B. Randell