Biorepository Data Portal

Herbs, perennial. Roots: rhizomes present. Stems erect to ascending, to 1 m. Leaves spirally arranged; leaf sheaths with red hairs at summit; blade lanceolate-elliptic to lanceolate-oblong, 6--20 ´ 1--5 cm, apex acuminate. Inflorescences: distal cyme vestigial, included (very rarely 1-flowered and exserted); spathes clustered, subsessile, funnelform, 1.5--3.5 ´ 1.2--2 cm, margins connate basally, glabrous (rarely puberulent). Flowers bisexual (rarely staminate); petals all pale blue, proximal one smaller; staminodes 3; antherodes entirely yellow, cruciform. Capsules 3-locular, 2-valved, (5.5--)6--9 ´ 3--6 mm. Seeds 5, brown, (2.4--)3--5(--6) ´ 2.4--3.1 mm, smooth with a few, shallow, irregular depressions, farinose. n = 30. Flowering midsummer--fall. Wet places, especially swamps, river and stream banks, ditches, and bottomlands, shade or full sun; Ala., Ark., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Md., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

Rhizomatous perennial; stem stout, erect or nearly so, to 12 dm, often widely branched; lf-blades lanceolate, long-acuminate, scabrous above, glabrous or finely hairy beneath, the main ones 10-20 נ2.5-5 cm; sheaths pilose-ciliate with red-brown hairs 2-5 mm, not prolonged into distinct auricles; spathes usually clustered toward the summit, sessile or short-peduncled, 2-3(-3.5) cm, nearly as wide when folded, the nerves connected by numerous cross-veins, the margins connate in the lower third; lower pet blue, scarcely reduced; fr 3-locular, the lower locules each 2-seeded, the upper one 1- seeded; 2n=60. Moist or wet woods; N.J. to Fla., w. to Ill., Kans., Okla., and Tex. (C. hirtella)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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