Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

BURHEAD

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Echinodorus berteroi (Spreng. ) Fassett

[=Echinodorus rostratus (Nutt. ) Engelm.]

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Annual or short-lived perennial

Height: 5-28 inches

Family: Alismataceae - Water-Plantain Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September

Also Called:

Erect burhead.

Stems:

Flowering stem (scape) erect, simple or branched, slender or robust.

Leaves:

Variable, basal, simple, mostly emersed: petiole usually present and long; blade elliptic to lanceolate or ovate, .8 to 8 inches long, .2 to 4.8 inches wide, parallel-veined, base tapered to truncate or cordate, margins entire or undulate.

Inflorescences:

Racemes or rarely panicles, erect, terminal; flowers in whorls of 3-8, each whorl 1-3 flowered.

Flowers:

1/4 to 1/2 inch across; stalks spreading to ascending, .25 to 1 inch long; sepals 3, distinct, ovate, .16 to .2 inch, spreading to recurved; petals 3, white, ovate to obovate, .16 to .28 inch; stamens 9-15; pistils 45-200, arranged spirally in spherical head.

Fruits:

Fruiting heads ca. .3 inch wide at maturity; achenes plump, oblanceolate, .1 to .14 inch, evenly 3-5-ribbed to sharply ridged, beak erect or oblique, ca. .04 inch; seeds horseshoe-shaped, brown, irregularly honeycombed.

Habitat:

In shallow water or mud flats of ponds and lakes, stream edges, ditches; muddy clay or sandy soils.

Distribution:

East 4/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

Sometimes used in tropical fish aquariums.

Comments:

Burhead is an emersed or submersed aquatic plant. The genus name is derived in part from the Greek word for hedgehog, which alludes to the appearance of the fruiting heads. bertoroi is for C.G.L. Bertero, 1789-1831, an Italian physician who studied plants in the West Indies.

Burhead flower