Zostera L.

Submerged marine plants; rhizome matted, orange-brown, creeping, compressed, rooting at the nodes; erect stems annual, compressed, sterile stems short arising from the axils of rhizomatous leaves, the floriferous stems terminal or lateral, longer than the sterile stems, branched. Leaves distichous, linear; leaf-sheath compressed, membranous, persisting longer than the leaf- blades; leaf-blade linear, margins entire or somewhat denticulate distally. Inflorescence terminal or lateral, forming erect annual branches, each terminating in a fertile leaf with the sheath containing a sessile, flattened, linear spadix. Flowers in two lines of alternating staminate and pistillate flowers on one surface of spadix. Fruit membranous, cylindric to ovoid, 1-seeded, indehiscent or irregularly dehiscent. Seed ellipsoid or ovoid, smooth or ribbed.

Worldwide: 11 species in warm temperate seas.

Mozambique: 1 taxon.