Bold arrow-shaped leaves stand above the water, with white three-petalled flowers with dark centres in whorls up a stem
Arrowhead, Sagittaria sagittifolia.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Arrowhead
Native · flowers Jun–Sep · shallow ponds, canals and slow rivers
Sagittaria sagittifolia — Alismataceae
An aquatic of shallow, slow water with three kinds of leaf: submerged ribbons, rounded floating leaves and, most strikingly, bold arrow-shaped leaves standing above the surface. The white flowers with dark centres open in the afternoon. It grows mainly in England and Northern Ireland.
How to spot them
- ▸Erect, glossy, arrow-shaped leaves held above the water on long triangular stalks
- ▸Spikes of white three-petalled flowers with a dark purple blotch at the base of each petal, the males above the females
- ▸Two other leaf types: rounded floating leaves and narrow ribbon-like submerged ones
- ▸Up to about 80 cm tall (Wildlife Trusts), in shallow water
- ▸Look-alike: lords-and-ladies has arrow-shaped leaves too, but grows on land and has a hooded spathe; water-plantain has oval leaves
How to know it
It has three types of leaf on one plant: arrow-shaped above the water, rounded on the surface and ribbon-like below
Arrowhead, per the Wildlife Trusts.
The genus name comes from the Latin for an arrow, as does the species name meaning arrow-leaved
Sagittaria sagittifolia — arrowhead.
Its flowers open in the afternoon and early evening, and it shelters dragonflies and damselflies
Arrowhead, per the Wildlife Trusts.
A wetland member of the same family as water plantain, found mainly in England and Northern Ireland
Arrowhead, Alismataceae.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Alismataceae, the water-plantain family
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers June to September, up to 80 cm tall, mainly in England and Northern Ireland
- •Three leaf shapes on one plant — arrow-shaped emergent, oval floating and ribbon-like submerged — an example of heterophylly
- •The male flowers sit above the female flowers on the same spike
- •Blooms open in the afternoon and early evening; it offers resting and sheltering places for dragonflies and damselflies
- •Sagitta is Latin for arrow
- •Native
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Arrowhead