1. Eriocaulon L.

Por M.J. Huft.

Plantas acaules o raramente con tallos foliosos alargados. Hojas generalmente fenestradas. Pedúnculos terminales. Bractéolas receptaculares presentes. Flósculos di- o trímeros; cáliz y corola presentes en todos los flósculos (excepto en E. bilobatum). Flósculos estaminados con los sépalos libres hasta la base o connatos en una espata dividida; pétalos connatos hacia la base, generalmente con una pequeña glándula negra cerca del ápice; estambres el doble del número de los sépalos, exertos; anteras 4-loculares. Flósculos pistilados con los sépalos libres o raramente connatos en la base; pétalos libres o raramente ausentes, generalmente con una pequeña glándula negra cerca del ápice; ovario sésil (pedicelado en E. williamsii); estilos 2 o 3, los estigmas simples. Más de 400 spp. Cosmopolita en áreas tropicales, subtropicales y cálido-templadas.

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• 14
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Herbs, annual or perennial, often cespitose, rosulate. Roots: larger roots unbranched, pale, septate, thickened, spongy. Stems rarely sparingly branched, short or elongate. Leaves many ranked in flat or high spiral; blade basally pale, distally greener, linear-attenuate or triangular-acuminate, lingulate, narrowing gradually or abruptly from base, base noticeably lacunate, less distinctly so distally. Inflorescences: scape sheaths tubular, orifice oblique (often 2--3-cleft); scapes 1--several per rosette, glabrous; heads pale to dark, white, gray, or gray-brown, hemispheric to globose or short-cylindric; receptacle hairy or glabrous; involucral bracts obscured or not obscured by inflorescence, pale to dark, chaffy or scarious; receptacular bracts narrower, thinner than involucral bracts, often scarious. Flowers mostly with staminate and pistillate on same plants, 2--3-merous; sepals 2(--3), adnate to stipelike base, boat-shaped, scarious, apex often covered with multicellular hairs, hairs mealy white or translucent, frequently club-shaped; petals 2(--3), narrower, shorter than sepals, apex hairy, hairs club-shaped, glands adaxial, subapical, dark, rarely pale. Staminate flowers: androphore apically dilated stalk; petals separated from sepals by androphore, diverging as lobes from apex; stamens 3--4 or 6, 2--3 alternating with petals; apex of staminal column with 2--3 glands, glands unappendaged; filaments arising from androphore rim; anthers 2-locular, 4-sporangiate, dorsifixed, usually versatile, well exserted at anthesis, jet black (except in E. cinereum). Pistillate flowers: gynophore separating petals from sepals, stipelike; pistil 2(--3)-carpellate; style 1, unappendaged, style branches 2(--3).

Source: [
• 13
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ERIOCAULON L.

Plantas arrosetadas, escapíferas, simples o fasciculadas, raíces generalmente engrosadas y con divisiones transversales. Hojas dispuestas en un espiral cerrado, triangular-lineares, con ápice ahusado y base abrazadora. Brácteas exteriores del involucro en pocas a numerosas series imbricadas, receptáculo bracteolar 1 por flor; sépalos 2 (3), escariosos, pálidos o coloreados, lisos o con tricomas; pétalos 2 (3), iguales o desiguales, separados de los sépalos por un pedículo y cada uno frecuentemente con una glándula negra en el interior; estambres (3–) 4–6, opuestos a los pétalos; carpelos 2 ó 3, ovario sobre un ginóforo, estilo 2 (3)-ramificado, estigmas lineares, no ramificados. Semillas ovoides, elipsoidales o ampliamente fusiformes, variadamente lineares, acostilladas, reticuladas o papilosas.

Género con ca 400 especies ampliamente distribuidas en los trópicos de ambos hemisferios, en orden de abundancia en Sudamérica, sur de Africa y Australasia; 4 especies se encuentran en Nicaragua.

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• 15
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Plantas higrófilas; tallo obsoleto o (rara vez) alargado, las raíces esponjosas, blancas, con frecuencia evi-dentemente diafragmadas. Hojas en rosetón o (rara vez) dispersas, con ventanillas diáfanas basalmente. Infls.varias (en CR), agrupadas hacia el ápice del tallo; brácteas florales presentes, glabras o esparcidamente pilosas(en CR). Fls. bí o trímeras, los pétalos generalmente con una glándula pequeña, negra, cerca del ápice (ausenteen E. guyanense y solo ocasional en las fls. estaminadas de E. seemannii); fls. estaminadas con los sépalos sepa-rados o parcialmente connatos, los pétalos connatos hacia la base y los estambres 4 ó 6, con anteras negras (enCR); fls. pistiladas con los sépalos separados o parcialmente connatos, los pétalos separados, los estilos 2 ó 3,sin nectarios y los estigmas simples.

Source: [
• 17
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Stems mostly very short, rarely elongate and equally covered with leaves throughout; leaves mostly tufted, membranous or very thin and pellucid, more or less linear or linear-lanceolate and grass-like, sessile and clasping at the base, very often fenestrate; florets dimerous or trimerous, the staminate mixed with the pistillate or segregated on separate heads or (rarely) on separate plants; perigonium almost always double; staminate florets with the sepals free at the base or often more or less connate into a split spathe, the 2 or 3 petals united below into a tube, free at the apex, the lobes usually bearing a small black gland on the inner surface near the apex; stamens twice as many as the sepals (or rarely 3) and exserted; anthers 4-celled, mostly black, composed of 2 thecae; pistillate florets with free or (rarely) spathaceous-connate sepals; petals free or rarely none, usually each bear- ing a small black gland slightly below the apex within; style-appendages none; stigmas 2 or 3, simple.

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• 16
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"Fls each subtended by a small bract, dimerous in our spp., the sep 2, distinct or connate, the pet 2, each with a nectariferous gland just within the tip, the ovary bilocular and the style bifid; staminate fls with an androphore; stamens bicyclic (4 in our spp.), exsert at anthesis; anthers with 2 pollen-sacs, black at maturity in our spp.; ovary on a gynophore which also bears the pet; lvs with evident lacunar tissue especially toward the base; roots fleshy-fibrous, septate, pale, unbranched. 400, mainly warm reg. The hairs of the receptacle, mentioned in the key below, are very slender and much elongate, in contrast to the thick short hairs of the perianth and receptacular bracts."

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• 19
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Herbs scapigerous, aquatic or growing in marshes, rarely on dry ground. Stems very short and disciform, rarely elongate. Leaves radical, linear. Scapes 3--8-ribbed; sheath oblique at mouth. Bracts scalelike. Flowers unisexual, with both sexes in same head, minute. Male flowers: sepals 2 or 3, usually connate into an abaxially split tube, rarely free; petals basally connate and funnelform, large, margin usually ciliate, apex distinctly or indistinctly 2- or 3-lobed, usually bearing a gland; stamens in 2 whorls, adnate to petals; anthers black or rarely yellowish. Female flowers: sepals 2 or 3, free, basally connate, or connate into an adaxial spathe, flat, boatlike, or crested, equal or unequal; petals absent to 3, linear, oblanceolate, or spatulate, margin ciliate, apex often bearing a large gland; ovary 1--3-loculed; style 1--3-branched. Seeds yellowish or brown, 1 per valve; testa usually hexagonally reticulate, prickles small and in rows or absent; embryo minute.

Seeds relatively large, ellipsoid, yellow to reddish brown, smooth or distinctively patterned.

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• 12
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Stamens twice as many as the petals (except E. angustibracteum ); anthers black or white

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Petals with a subapical or apical black gland on the inner face, or the glands sometimes reduced or absent, often white-hairy at the tip; male petals all very small or one enlarged and exserted from the capitulum

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• 12
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Sepals free or ± connate especially in the male flowers, usually free in the female, often navicular, sometimes winged

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• 12
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Flowers sessile or pedicellate on the central receptacle, male and female mixed or the female around the periphery (especially in annuals)

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• 12
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Involucral bracts of the capitulum scarious to coriaceous, spreading or reflexed at maturity; floral bracts frequently white-hairy towards the tip

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• 12
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Scapes single, often twisted, enclosed at the base by a tubular sheath

Source: [
• 12
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