Water Plantain Seeds (Alisma triviale)

This most interesting perennial aquatic plant produces a rambunctious “spray” of numerous small three-petaled white flowers arising on a tall, extensively branching stalk.  Yet this whole riotous flower affair originates from a short set of basal leaves that, while large and almost tropical-looking, remain low to the ground. The result is a wildly interesting plant that looks like two totally different plants combined into one.   This botanical oddity, with its shallow, fibrous roots, needs nearly constant wet soil or muddy ground to thrive – making it at home in vernal pools, wet drainage ditches, shallow ponds, muddy flats that stay continuously damp, bioswales and rain gardens.  For all its striking and unusual appearances, water plantain is a good wildlife plant with seeds that are occasionally enjoyed by waterfowl, flower stalks browsed by deer, and with flowers that are visited by small flies and sweat bees. (It is also sometimes home for several small aphid species that speciali