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Roughleaf Yellow Loosestrife (Lysimachia asperulifolia)

Description

This plant is a rhizomatous perennial herb growing erect to a maximum height around 60 to 70 centimeters. The lower stem is pinkish in color and ribbed, and the upper stem is yellowish and lacks ribs. The stem in the inflorescence is covered in reddish glands. The leaves are green, lance-shaped, and up to 5 centimeters long by 2 wide. They are borne in whorls of three or four around the stem, or sometimes in opposite pairs. The leaves are not rough in texture as the common name would suggest.Smaller, tougher, brown-colored leaves are opposite or borne in whorls of up to 7 near the stem base. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence, which is a raceme of star-shaped yellow flowers interspersed with leaflike green bracts. Each flower has 4 to 7, but usually five, yellow petals with wide bases and pointed, ragged tips. The petals and green sepals are dotted with red glands and streaked with reddish resin canals. The fruit is a red-mottled straw-colored capsule a few millimeters in length.

Taxonomic tree

  • Domain: Eukarya

    • Kingdom: Plantae

      • Phylum: Magnoliophyta

        • Class: Magnoliopsida

          • Order: Ericales

            • Family: Primulaceae

              • Genus: Lysimachia