Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Leucothoe racemosa (L.) Gray
- Family: Heath (Ericaceae)
- Flowering: March-June
- Field Marks: This Leucothoe has deciduous leaves, anthers of the stamens with four short, pointed awns, and wingless seeds.
- Habitat: Swamps, stream banks, bayheads, pond margins, bogs, wet thickets, savannas.
- Habit: Shrub up to 4 1/2 feet tall.
- Stems: Slender, gray to tan, short-hairy.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, deciduous, elliptic to lanceolate, pointed at the tip, rounded or tapering to the base, toothed, short-hairy, at least when young, up to 2 inches long, up to 1 1/ 2 inches wide; leaf stalks hairy, up to 1/6 inch long.
- Flowers: Several in solitary racemes in the axils of the leaves, the racemes arching, up to 4 inches long, with the axes short-hairy.
- Sepals: 5, green, united at the base, up to 1/6 inch long, persistent on the fruit.
- Petals: 5, white or tinged with pink, united to form an urn, up to 1/3 inch long.
- Stamens: 10, with anthers of the stamens with 4 short, pointed awns.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Spherical but flattened at one or both ends, up to 1/4 inch in diameter, dark brown with light-colored markings; seeds numerous, light brown, shiny, wingless.
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