Burmannia disticha L.

Robust annual, up to 75 cm. Stem usually simple, forked into the inflorescence. Rosette distinct; leaves linear or lanceolate, acute, up to 15 cm by 13 mm. Stem leaves reduced to appressed, lanceolate, acute or acuminate scales, up to 7 cm by 7 mm, imbricate in the lower part of stem; upper part of stem often leafless. Inflorescence branches up to 8 cm. Bracts lanceolate, acute, about 5-12 mm. Flowers sessile or shortly pedicellate, blue or purplish, often with yellow-tipped, greenish lobes, rarely yellow, 10-20 mm. Outer perianth lobes triangular, acute, 2½ mm; margin thick, double in the basal part. Inner lobes linear-lanceolate, fleshy, obtuse, 1-1½ mm. Perianth tube cylindrical-trigonous, 3-4½ mm. Connective broad, provided with 2 distinct, acute apical crests and a broad, obtuse to almost truncate, basal, hanging spur. Style thick-filiform, bearing 3 sessile, funnel-shaped stigmas; style with stigmas about 3 mm. Ovary ellipsoid to obovoid, truncate, attenuate towards the base, up to 1 cm. Flower wings elliptical, 10-18 by ½-2½ mm, continuing as crests on the back of the outer perianth lobes, decurrent along the short pedicel. Capsule obovoid, truncate, irregularly dehiscing with transverse slits.

A species with a large ecological amplitude. It has been collected in brush-wood, swamps and bogs among Sphagna, moist hollows, open grasslands, mountain meadows, marshy plateaus, on bare rocks, and has even been recorded as growing in water; ascending to ca 3500 m alt.