Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Buckbean
Menyanthes trifoliata
Buckbean family (Menyanthaceae)

Buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) makes neat little islands of vertical leaves. It sprouts from stout, under-water and produces masses of leaves in threes, each leaf about five inches long. Clusters of lovely five-petaled, white, fringed flowers with purple hairs appear in early-to-mid-summer, on stalks just above the leaves. Linnaeus named this species in 1753 from specimens collected in Europe. The plant is circumboreal.


©2012 Christian Fischer

Description

plants with creeping rootstocks. but , long-petioled and in threes. from 1/5 to 2/5" long, oval to , thick, , . very short. abut 1/2" long, white or tinged with rose or purple, fringed. a , rupturing.

Field Marks

Showy white fringed flowers floating with their leaves on ponds.

© Al Schneider

An entire leaf has smooth edges. Not toothed or lobed.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.

corolla -- The name for all the petals of a flower taken together.

capsule -- a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. In most cases the capsule splits apart to release seeds.

basal -- at the base, situated or attached at the base.

calyx -- the sepals of a flower, typically forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a flower in bud.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

leaves alternate along the main stem and are attached singly.

elliptic -- Oval, with no point or a very short point.

glabrous -- smooth, glossy, having no bristles or hair-like structures. Bald.

leaflets -- Each little leaf-like thing in a compound leaf is a leaflet.

rhizome -- root-like stems that may either grow horizontally at the soil surface or in other orientations underground.