Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Lysimachia quadriflora Sims
- Family: Primrose (Primulaceae)
- Flowering: July-August
- Field Marks: This loosestrife has linear, sessile leaves without apparent venation, 4-angled stem, and 5 yellow petals abruptly pointed at the tip.
- Habitat: Fens, shores, bogs.
- Habit: Perennial herb from slender rhizomes.
- Stems: Upright, sometimes branched, slender, 4-angled, smooth, up to 2 1/2 feet tall.
- Leaves: Basal leaves in a rosette, elliptic to obovate, up to 1 1/2 inches long, up to 1/2 inch wide, usually withered by flowering time; stem leaves opposite, linear, pointed or rounded at the tip, narrowed to the sessile base, up to 4 inches long, up to 1/3 inch wide, without teeth but rolled under along the margins, smooth except for the ciliate base, usually with clusters of smaller leaves in the axils of the major leaves.
- Flowers: Borne in clusters of 1-4 in the upper axils, on smooth stalks up to 1 1/2 inches long.
- Sepals: 5, green, united near the base, the lobes lanceolate, pointed at the tip, smooth, 1/6-1/4 inch long.
- Petals: 5, yellow, united near the base, obovate, with a pointed tip, up to 1/2 inch long, with gland-tipped hairs on the inner surface.
- Stamens: 5, attached to the base of the petals.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules nearly spherical, 1/8-1/6 inch in diameter, with several tiny, flattish seeds.
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