Family, Pickerel - weed. Color, violet-blue. Perianth, tubular, 2-lipped, the upper lip composed of 3 ovate lobes, the middle one of which is the longest; the lower lip also 3-divided, spreading, drooping. Upper lip marked with a pair of yellow spots. Stamens, 6, 3 of them often being worthless, all borne upon the perianth-tube. Anthers and style, blue. Leaves, thick, triangular, heart or arrow-shape at base, marked with many parallel veins, on long, sheathing petioles, mostly from the root, 4 to 8 inches long, half as wide. Flowers, borne in a raceme or thick spike growing out of a sheathing bract. After fruiting the flower perianth coils from the apex downward and surrounds the fruit. June to October.

Pickerel-Weed (Pondeteria cordata)

An aquatic, found on the borders of ponds and lakes from Nova Scotia to Florida westward to Minnesota and Texas. (See illustration, p. 301.)

Mud Plantain. Heteranthera reniformis

Family, Pickerel-weed. Color, pale blue or white. (See White Flowers, p. 44.)