Orontium aquaticum is a rhizomatous marginal aquatic perennial that typically grows in shallow water in swamps, marshes, ponds, slow-moving streams and bogs from Massachusetts to W. Virginia and Kentucky south to the Gulf of Mexico. Spreads indefinitely by stout, slowly creeping rhizomes. Long-stalked elliptic dark bluish-green leaves are submerged, floating or aerial. If removed from water, submerged leaves appear totally dry because of their waxy glaucous surface, hence the sometimes common name of Never-Wet for this plant. Tiny yellow flowers appear in narrow club-like spadixes from April to June.