Lythrum lanceolatum Elliott

Southern Winged Loosestrife

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Southern Winged Loosestrife is a native herbaceous perennial in the Loosestrife family (Lythraceae). It is native to most of Alabama. Southern Winged Loosestrife occurs in wet prairies, in low pastures, along pond and lake margins, and in wet roadside ditches. It is a perennial with an elongate rhizome. Stems are erect, branched above the middle, obscurely angled, glabrous, and green above and brown below. Leaves are opposite lower on the stem and alternate near the tips. The leaves are sessile, lance-ovate to linear-lanceolate in outline, glabrous, with entire margins. The leaves are greatly reduced upwards. Flowers are solitary in the axils of the upper leaves. Each flower has a cylindrical ribbed calyx with 5 triangular teeth and subulate intersepalar appendages alternating with them. The intersepalar appendages are longer than the calyx teeth. The corolla is funnel-form with 6 petals fused at the base into a short tube. The petals range in color from lavender to pale blue or pinkish, to almost white. Each petal has a purple or rose-pink mid-vein. The fruit is a capsule. Southern Winged Loosestrife is an important food plant for bees. It can be grown in a bog garden or along ponds or streams. It prefers a moist clay soil in full sun. Southern Winged Loosestrife is very similar to Northern Winged Loosestrife (Lythrum alatum Pursh) and is often treated as a variety of that species. It differs in having a minute bract on the distal part of the pedicel near the base of the flower while L. alatum produces a similar bract near the base of the pedicel.—A. Diamond

Very similar to L. alatum but bears a minute bract on distal part of pedicel near base of flower while L. alatum produces a similar bract near base of pedicel.

Native FACW+ (NWPL)

**