Sagittaria

Sagittaria
S. sagittifolia
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Alismatales
Family:	Alismataceae
Genus:	Sagittaria L.
Species
See text
Synonyms
Lophiocarpus (Kunth) Miq. Lophotocarpus T.Durand[1]

"Katniss" redirects here. For The Hunger Games character, see Katniss Everdeen.

Sagittaria is a genus of about 30^[2] species of aquatic plants whose members go by a variety of common names, including arrowhead, duck potato, iz-ze-kn,^[3] katniss, kuwai (くわい in Japanese), swan potato, tule potato, and wapato (or wapatoo). Most are native to South, Central, and North America, but there are also some from Europe and Asia.^[2] The generic name means "belonging to an arrow" in Latin and refers to the shape of the leaves.^[4] The genus lies within the water plantain family, the Alismataceae.

Description

Sagittaria sagittifolia flowers

Sagittaria plant stock (the perennial rhizome) is a horizontal creeper (stoloniferous) and tuberous, a thick, fleshy root without buds. Leaves may be aerial, floating or submerged.

The flowers can be unisexual or polygamous, and vary in umbels, umbrella-like forms from a central stalk, racemes (bunches) or loose branching panicles arranged with female or hermaphrodite flowers at the base and male flowers above, or occasionally with the flowers all male or all female. Flowers have numerous stamens and the carpels comprising ovary, stigma and style, also numerous, are spirally arranged and free, each with one ovule. The styles are at the apex ("apical") or low-set ("subventral").

Fruitlets are achenial, laterally compressed, obliquely obovate, the margins winged, with apical or ventral beak; in other words, they are a small, dry, one-seeded fruit that do not open to release the seed, set on a slant, narrower at the base, with winged edges, and having a "beaked" aperture (one side longer than the other) for sprouting, set above or below the fruit body.

Habitat

Sagittaria species are found in canals, ponds, ditches and slow rivers but are never abundant.

Uses

Ornamental

Some Sagittaria species are commonly grown in aquariums or in ornamental ponds. Probably due to introductions from the aquarium trade, S. platyphylla is naturalized in at least one locality in Northern Italy and S. subulata in at least one locality in Southern England.

As food

Several species bear tubers edible as a starchy root vegetable that are collected from the wild or cultivated as crops in North America and East Asia.

Selected species

Wapato bulb

Sagittaria aginashi Makino Sagittaria australis (J.G.Sm.) Small – Appalachian Arrowhead Sagittaria brevirostra Mack. & Bush – Shortbeak Arrowhead Sagittaria cuneata E.P.Sheld. – Wapato, Arrowhead, Swamp Potato Sagittaria demersa J.G.Sm. Sagittaria engelmanniana J.G.Sm.Engelmann's arrowhead Sagittaria fasciculata E.O.Beal – Bunched Arrowhead Sagittaria filiformis J.G.Sm. – Threadleaf Arrowhead Sagittaria graminea Michx. – Grassy Arrowhead Sagittaria guayanensis Kunth – Guyanese Arrowhead Sagittaria isoetiformis J.G.Sm. – Quillwort Arrowhead Sagittaria kurziana Glück – Springtape or Strap-leaf Sagittaria Sagittaria lancifolia L. – Bulltongue Arrowhead Sagittaria latifolia Willd. – Duck-potato, Broad Leaf Arrowhead

Sagittaria longiloba Engelm. ex J.G. Sm. – Longbarb Arrowhead Sagittaria macrophylla Zucc. Sagittaria montevidensis Cham. & Schltdl. – California Arrowhead Sagittaria papillosa Buchenau – Nipplebract Arrowhead Sagittaria platyphylla – Delta Arrowhead, Delta Duck-potato Sagittaria pygmaea Miq. Sagittaria rigida Pursh. – Canadian Arrowhead Sagittaria sagittifolia L. – Arrowhead Sagittaria sanfordii Greene – Valley Arrowhead Sagittaria secundifolia Kral – Little River Arrowhead Sagittaria subulata L. Buchenau – Narrow-leaved Arrowhead Sagittaria teres S.Watson – Slender Arrowhead Sagittaria trifolia L. – Threeleaf Arrowhead[5][6]

Formerly placed here

• Echinodorus palaefolius (Nees & Mart.) J.F.Macbr. (as S. palaefolia Nees & Mart.)
• Limnophyton obtusifolium (L.) Miq. (as S. obtusifolia L.)
• Wiesneria triandra (Dalzell) Micheli (as S. triandra Dalzell)^[5]

References

1. ^ "Sagittaria L.". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. 1998-09-03. http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/genus.pl?10644. Retrieved 2010-07-13. 
2. ^ ^{a b} 3. Sagittaria Linnaeus, Flora of North America
3. ^ The Probert Encyclopaedia - Animals And Plants (A)
4. ^ Quattrocchi, Umberto (2000). CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names. 4 R-Z. Taylor & Francis US. p. 2364. ISBN 978-0-8493-2678-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=2ndDtX-RjYkC&. 
5. ^ ^{a b} "Species Records of Sagittaria". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/splist.pl?10644. Retrieved 2010-07-13. 
6. ^ "Sagittaria". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=38903. Retrieved 13 July 2010. 

• Rataj, K., Annot. Zool. Bot. (Bratislava) 76:1-31 (1972); 78:1-61 (1972)
• Staff of the L. H. Bailey Hortorium, Hortus Third, pg. 993

External links

• Plants for a Future
• The Arrowheads
• Ethnobotany of S. latifolia
• Edibility of Sagittaria: Identification and edible parts of Sagittaria.