Starfruit
Damasonium californicum
Damasonium minus (fruit)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Alismatales
Family: Alismataceae
Genus: Damasonium
Mill.
Species

See text

Damasonium is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the family Alismataceae, commonly known as starfruit and by the older name thrumwort. The genus has a subcosmopolitan but very patchy distribution.[1][2][3][4]

They are aquatic perennial herbaceous plants growing in shallow water or mud beside ponds. The leaves are all basal, floating, or aerial in plants on pond margins. The flowers are hermaphrodite, in one to many whorls, in umbels, racemes or panicles; they have six stamens, and six to nine carpels arranged in a whorl, connate at the base, each with two to many ventral ovules; The styles are terminal. The fruit is a whorl of follicles; the follicles are laterally compressed, stellately radiating, with a more or less elongated apical beak.[3][4]

Taxonomy

The genus was first described by Philip Miller in 1754. No type species was designated.[2][5]

Species

As of May 2014, there are six accepted species:[6][7]

References

  1. ↑ Germplasm Resources Information Network: Damasonium
  2. 1 2 "Damasonium". Australian Plant Name Index, IBIS database. Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government.
  3. 1 2 Flora of NW Europe: Damasonium
  4. 1 2 Flora of North America: Damasonium
  5. ↑ Miller, P. (1754). The Gardeners Dictionary abridged. Vol. 1 (4 ed.). p. 435.
  6. ↑ "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew". apps.kew.org (in German). Retrieved 2017-01-26.
  7. ↑ Altervista Flora Italiana, Mestolaccia stellata, Starfruit, Damasonium
  8. ↑ Biota of North America Program Image
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