Albidella

Albidella is a genus of plants in the Alismataceae. At the present time (May 2014), only one species is known, Albidella nymphaeifolia, formerly called Echinodorus nymphaeifolius. It is native to Cuba and the Yucatán Peninsula (Belize, Guatemala, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán State). Leaves are variable; one plant can develop 2 - 3 stems of different types simultaneously. Submersed leaves short-petiolate, blades long, lanceolate to linear, light-green, membraneously transparent, 15 – 25 cm long x 0.8 - 1.8 cm wide, obtuse at the point, decurrent to the markedly winged petiole at the base. Their margins are undulate to curled, sometimes narrowly parallel, another time the blades broaden towards the apex and are widest in the upper 1/3 showing clariform. Floating or emersed leaves are 25 – 35 cm long, long-petioled, blades oval or ovate with conspicuous lobes, which touch and / or cover each other. Blades and lobes inclusively 6 – 12 cm long x 5 – 8 cm wide, the length of the central rib usually being the same as the width of the blade. In the blade there are, some distance from each other, clear, short and longer pellucid lines reaching a length of 0.2 - 0.3 mm. Sterile plants look very similar to Echinodorus berteroi. This genus markedly differs from Echinodorus by a typical paniculate inflorescence shaped as a regular pyramid. Flowering stalk is 40 – 50 cm tall, inflorescence up to 12 – 20 cm long, flowers arranged in 2 - 6 whorls, bracts of the lower whorl reach a length of 2.5 – 4 cm and a width of 0.5 - 0.8 cm, bracts in further whorls being only 2 – 5 mm long. Corolla white, stamens usually 9. Compound fruit comprises maximum 20 achenes, each 1.4 - 1.6 mm long x 1 mm wide with a broad crested keel and with crested ribs and 1 or 2 long glands on each face, beak 0.2 mm long.