Leaves: petiole 3-6 mm. Leaf blade 3-8 × (2-)2.5(-4) cm. Flowers: if bisexual, ovary stalked, 1-locular, ovoid, tubercular; styles 2, reflexed. Fruits stalked, compressed, ca. 8 mm, leathery, hirtellous, covered with irregular warty excrescences. Seeds ovoid. Flowering spring (Apr-May). Swamps, streams, lakes, alluvial flood plains, often forming large stands; 0-200 m; Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex. Planera aquatica is endemic to southeastern United States.

Tall shrub or small tree to 10 m; lvs lance-ovate to oblong or ovate, usually 3-7 cm, rounded at base, glabrous to minutely pubescent; staminate fls barely protruding from the bud-scales; pistillate fls 1-3 from each axil; fr conspicuously stipitate above the persistent cal, the endocarp thin and papery, the exocarp raised into longitudinal ridges bearing soft, finger-like projecting processes 1-3 mm. Swamps; Fla. to Tex., n. to w. Ky., s. Ill. and s. Mo. Fls with the lvs, April.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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