FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Leaf tips rounded; round ball-like flowers/fruits distinctive, with male and female flowers on separate balls.
Description: Medium height perennial, up to 1 m tall, with thick, spongy leaves and spiky, ball-like fruits.
Leaves: Mostly basal, simple, entire, thick and spongy. Leaves often grow taller than flowering stems. Leaf tips somewhat rounded.
Flowers/Fruit: Ball-shaped flowering heads, born sequentially along a zig-zag flowering stem; female flowers on lower balls and male flowers on upper balls. Fruits are balls comprised of nutlets. Flowers and fruits from May to September.
Habit and Range: Often in standing water in marshes, sunny edges of slow streams, beaver ponds, swamps, and lakes; statewide, but chiefly in the Coastal Plain and Mountains.
