Kickxia elatine (L.) Dumort.

Sharpleaf Cancerwort; Sharpleaf Fluellen

Herb

Annual

Vascular

Sharpleaf Fluellen is an introduced annual or short-lived perennial in the Plantain family (Plantaginaceae). It is native to Asia and Europe. In Alabama it has been collected from scattered locations across the state. Sharpleaf Fluellen occurs on roadsides, in fields, on chalk outcrops, on gravel bars, and in other sunny disturbed sites, often on basic or sandy soils. Sharpleaf Fluellen is a much-branched prostrate or decumbent herbaceous species from a large taproot. The stems are green in color, shaggy pubescent, and with scattered glands. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, ovate to elliptic in outline, cuneate to hastate or sagittate at the base, pubescent, and with scattered glandular-hairs. Flowers are solitary on a long thin pedicel from the axils of the leaves. The pedicels are glabrous or with sparse long hairs. The calyx is green in color, pubescent, and 5-lobed. The corolla is bilaterally symmetrical, bilabiate and spurred. The spur and lower lip of the corolla is pale yellow in color and the upper lip is blue-violet. The flowers have a 'snapdragon' appearance. The fruit is a globular capsule. Fluellin is an obsolete name for certain species of Veronica. In addition to North America, Sharpleaf Fluellen has been introduced in Africa, Australia, Central and South America, and on islands in the Atlantic Ocean.—A. Diamond.

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Not Native

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