Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Potamogeton foliosus Raf.
- Family: Pondweed (Potamogetonaceae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: This species is distinguished by its few-flowered, subcapitate spikes and its tiny
fruits which are toothed along the back.
- Habitat: Streams and takes, sometimes in brackish water.
- Habit: Aquatic perennial from thread-like rhizomes, sometimes rooting at the nodes.
- Stems: Thread-like, flattened, unbranched to much branched, smooth.
- Leaves: All alike, submersed, alternate or opposite, elongated, linear, more or less pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, up to 5 inches long, up to 1/8 inch wide, green or bronze.
- Flowers: Crowded into spikes, the spikes subcapitate, cylindrical, up to 1/4 inch long, sometimes nearly as thick; flowers sessile.
- Sepals: 4, green or brownish, free from each other, about 1/20 inch long.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 4.
- Pistils: 4, free from each other, smooth.
- Fruits: Achenes obovoid, flattened, greenish brown, toothed down the back, up to 1/8 inch long, nearly as broad, with a minute beak.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
Previous Species -- Ribbon-leaf Pondweed (Potamogeton epihydrus)
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Next Species -- Grassy Pondweed (Potamogeton gramineus)