Lysimachia ciliata

Native

Wet to moist. Deciduous woodlands, swamps, thickets, wet prairies, marshes, stream banks. Full sun to light shade.

June to July

Yellow

10″ to 50″

This is a 10″ to 50″ tall, erect, perennial forb that rises from long, creeping rhizomes.

The stems are more or less erect and usually unbranched, sometimes sparingly branched above the middle. They are hairless and may be round or square.

There are no basal leaves. Stem leaves are opposite, lance-shaped to egg-shaped, 1½″ to 5½″ long, and ⅝″ to 2⅜″ wide. They are on 3 ⁄16″ to 2⅜″ long, conspicuously hairy leaf stalks. The leaf blades taper to a point at the tip and are rounded, wedge-shaped, or slightly heart-shaped at the base. The upper surface is dark green or bright green and hairless. The lower surface is pale green and hairless. The leaf surfaces are not dotted. The margins are untoothed and have a fringe of long hairs along their entire length.

The inflorescence is a single flower nodding at the end of a hairless, ⅝″ to 2⅜″ long stalk that rises from middle and upper leaf axils.

The flowers are ⅓″ to 1″ wide. There are 5 green sepals united into a tube (calyx) with 5 narrowly lance-shaped, ⅛″ to ⅜″ long lobes. The calyx lobes have 3 to 5 parallel, often reddish-brown veins. There are 5 widely spreading, egg-shaped to round, 3 ⁄16″ to ½″ long, ⅛″ to ⅜″ wide petals. The petals are yellow and sometimes reddish at the base. They taper abruptly at the tip to a long, slender point. There are 5 erect stamens with yellowish anthers and a single green style.

The fruit is a hairless, green, shiny, spherical to egg-shaped, 3 ⁄16″ to ¼″ in diameter capsule containing 25 to 40 seeds.