Pontederia africana (Solms) M.Pell. & C.N.Horn

Tufted aquatic annual up to 0.75 m tall, leaves and racemes basal, roots fibrous, very numerous. Leaves: lamina cordate to ovate, c. 100 mm long, attenuated into acute apex; petioles up to 70 mm long, sheathed basally. Flowering stem bearing simple, shortly pedunculate raceme, emerging from leaf-sheath of somewhat reduced apical leaf; rhachis up to 200 mm long, many-flowered, pedicels thin, c. 10 mm long. Flowers with segments nearly free to base, c. 15 mm long, blue with red glands dotted along midrib. Stamens somewhat unequal; 5 smaller, yellow, 6th larger with blue anther. Ovary oblong-globose; style somewhat declinate; stigma papillate. Capsule fusiform, 14 mm long; permanent style forming beak, enclosed in marcescent perianth, dehiscing explosively; seed typical.