Plantae > Tracheophyta > Liliopsida > Alismatales > Araceae > Orontium > Orontium aquaticum

Orontium aquaticum (goldenclub)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Orontium aquaticum /ɒˈrɒntiəm/, sometimes called golden-club, is a species of flowering plants in the Araceae family. It is the single living species in the genus Orontium, which also contains several extinct species described from fossils. O. aquaticum is endemic to the eastern United States and is found growing in ponds, streams, and shallow lakes. It prefers an acidic environment. The leaves are pointed and oval with a water repellent surface. The inflorescence is most notable for having an extremely small almost indistinguishable sheath surrounding the spadix. Very early in the flowering this green sheath withers away leaving only the spadix. The sheath was originally classified by Adolf Engler as a spathe due it being the last foliar piece before the spadix. He also noted that species
View Wikipedia Record: Orontium aquaticum

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  The plant is rich in calcium oxylate, this is toxic and if consumed makes the mouth and digestive tract feel as though hundreds of needles are being stuck into it. However, calcium oxylate is easily destroyed by thoroughly cooking or drying the plant.
Lifespan [1]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Scent [1]  A most unpleasant animal smell is emitted from the flowers;
Structure [2]  Herb
Height [1]  20 inches (0.5 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Orontium aquaticum

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Northern Baltic Drainages Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden Palearctic Polar Freshwaters    

Protected Areas

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0