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Bigblue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

• Family: Bellwort (Campanulaceae)
• Flowering: August-September.
• Field Marks: This Lobelia differs by its inch long blue flowers and its sepals cleft about halfway down the cup.
• Habitat: Along streams, wet meadows, around ponds and lakes, wet prairies, in sloughs, roadside ditches.
• Habit: Perennial herb from fibrous roots.
• Stems: Erect, usually branched, smooth or hairy, up to 4 feet tall, with milky sap.
• Leaves: Alternate, simple, oblong to elliptic, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, toothed, smooth or hairy, up to 5 inches long.
• Flowers: Several crowded into racemes up to 10 inches long, blue, up to 1 inch long, on short stalks.
• Sepals: 5, green, united below for about half their length.
• Petals: 5, blue, 2-lipped; the upper lip 2-lobed; the lower lip 3-lobed.
• Stamens: 5.
• Pistils: Ovary inferior.
• Fruits: Capsules opening at the top.
• Notes: The leaves and stems are browsed upon by white-tailed deer.