Podostemaceae Richard ex C. Agardh
川苔草科 chuan tai cao ke
Authors: Huaxing Qiu & C. Thomas Philbrick
Herbs, annual or perennial, aquatic. Roots usually flattened, thalloid or filiform. Leaves distichous, scattered, or imbricate, base often sheathed, margin entire or dissected. Flowers bisexual, solitary, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, enclosed or not by a spathella or spathella lacking. Tepals 2-5, free or ± connate. Stamens 1-4, hypogynous; filaments free or partially connate; anthers 2-4-loculed, longitudinally or irregularly dehiscent. Ovary superior, 2- or 3-loculed; ovules numerous, placenta central. Styles 2 or 3. Fruit a septicidal capsule. Seeds numerous, minute, without endosperm.
About 40 genera and 200 species: widespread in tropical regions, a few species in temperate regions: three genera and four species (two endemic) in China.
The plants live attached to submerged rocks or wood in rushing water in rapids or cataracts of streams and rivers. They are easily overlooked, and more field work is needed in China.
Wu Te-lin. 1988. Podostemaceae. In: Kiu Hua-shing & Ling Yeou-ruenn, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 24: 1–5.
