Marsh Purslane (Ludwigia palustris)
- Family: Evening Primrose (Onagraceae)
- Flowering: May-September.
- Field Marks: This is a prostrate, smooth Ludwigia, sometimes rooting at the nodes, and with opposite leaves and tiny axillary flowers without petals.
- Habitat: Around ponds and lakes, in roadside ditches, in mud along streams, in sloughs, in swamps, sometimes in shallow water.
- Habit: Annual herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Floating in water or lying flat on the ground, smooth, up to 1 1/2 feet long.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, lanceolate to lance-ovate, pointed or rounded at the tip, tapering to the base, without teeth, smooth, up to 1 1/4 inches long.
- Flowers: Solitary in the axils of the leaves, green, up to 1/6 inch long, without a stalk.
- Sepals: 4, green, united below to form a cup.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 4.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Capsules 4-sided, longer than broad, up to 1/6 inch long, containing many seeds.
- Notes: The stems are eaten by muskrats.
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