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Winged Lythrum (Lythrum alatum)

• Family: Loosestrife (Lythraceae)
• Flowering: June-September.
• Field Marks: Purple flowers with usually 6 free petals, a 4-angled stem, and leaves alternate, opposite, or even whorled distinguish this species from all others.
• Habitat: Margins of streams, wet meadows, ponds and ditches, wet prairies, marshes, damp areas in rocky glades.
• Habit: Herbaceous perennials from tufted roots.
• Stems: 1-several, erect, stiffly branching, smooth, 4-angled, up to 3 1/2 feet tall.
• Leaves: Upper usually alternate, lower usually opposite or even whorled, simple, linear to broadly lanceolate, pointed at the tip, more or less rounded at the base, the largest up to 2 inches long, without teeth, smooth.
• Flowers: Solitary in the axils of the upper leaves, purple, with very short stalks.
• Sepals: Usually 6, green, united below to form a tube as long as or longer than the petals.
• Petals: Usually 6, purple, free from each other, up to 1/4 inch long.
• Stamens: Usually 6, sometimes protruding above the petals, sometimes not.
• Pistils: Ovary superior.
• Fruits: Capsules somewhat longer than broad, with numerous minute seeds.
• Notes: The seeds may be eaten by waterfowl.