Rooted, submerged aquatic herbs; stems often branching, sometimes ridged, the nodes sometimes slightly jointed, glabrate or pubescent with weak, white, several-celled hairs, glandular punctate. Leaves 6-8 verticellate, 2-35 mm long, imparipinnately dissected, the 5-20 segments on each side flat, filiform, 0.5-12.0 mm long; petiole wanting or short, the leaf bases sometimes united into a rudi-mentary column. Inflorescence of solitary flowers in the leaf axils, usually only 1 per node, pedicels 0.5-18.0 mm long, becoming 10-25 mm long and stouter in fruit, holding flower ?and fruit above the water surface, ebracteate. Flowers 2-5 mm long in bud, the calyx mostly 2-5 mm long, 5-lobed to near the base, the lobes narrow, costate and cucullate, apically ciliolate, punctate, becoming more strongly angled and longer in fruit; corolla bluish or mauve with a yellow eye, lined, exserted ca. 5 mm from the calyx, 2-lipped, the lobes rounded, ?entire; stamens 4, the anthers versatile, all alike, and the thecae all alike, the filament apically narrowed and the connective not evidently enlarged; style straight, the stigma flattened and curved. Capsule ovoid, ca. 2.5 mm long, slightly shorter than the calyx, the pericarp membranous, perhaps not regularly dehiscent, the style persistent; seeds numerous, 0.6 mm long, tan or yellowish, longitudinally reticulate.
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