Citation: Besser ex Koch, in Roehi., Deutschl. Fl. edn 3, 2:25, 433 (1826).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Erect stoloniferous glabrous perennial herbs of wet places, often growing in water; stems hollow, striate, branched; leaves petiolate, pinnate; leaflets serrate or lobed, or if submerged in stagnant water 3- or 4-pinnate; petioles sheathing.

Umbels compound, pedunculate, terminal and axillary, often leaf-opposed; involucral bracts narrow, entire or toothed; rays rather few, spreading; involucel of conspicuous bracteoles; pedicels spreading; sepals minute, subulate; petals obovate, with a narrow inflexed apex, white; stylopodium conical.

Fruit suborbicular, laterally compressed; carpophore split to the base, its halves adnate to the 5-angled (in transection) mericarps; ribs filiform, obtuse, only slightly prominent; pericarp with a thick corky layer of equal thickness under ribs, valleculae and commissure; vittae numerous, contiguous at inner layer of pericarp, not visible from the outside.

Distribution:  A genus with 2 species, 1 of the Northern Hemisphere, 1 of Africa. 1 species naturalised in eastern temperate Australia.

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: Derived from berle, the French vernacular name for the plant.

Author: Not yet available