Water-shield [for Christoph Brasen, 1774, Moravian missionary and plant collector in Greenland and Labrador]

Herbs , young vegetative parts heavily coated with mucilage. Leaves floating; petiole long. Leaf blade elliptic. Flowers: sepals 3, not petaloid, linear-oblong to narrowly ovate; petals 3, linear-oblong, lacking auricles, base not clawed; stamens 18-36(-51), opposite both sepals and petals; pistils 4-18, simple, 1-locular; ovules (1-)2; stigma linear-decurrent. Fruits slightly to strongly fusiform. Seeds ovoid, tubercles absent. x = 40.

Species 1 (1 in the flora): worldwide except Europe, mainly temperate and upland tropics.

Brasenia is known from the fossil record in Europe although it is not known to grow there currently.

Lower Taxon

• Brasenia schreberi J. F. Gmelin