Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Lyonia lucida (Lam.) K. Koch
- Family: Heath (Ericaceae)
- Flowering: April-June
- Field Marks: This evergreen Lyonia is distinguished by its smooth lower leaf surfaces.
- Habitat: Swamps, bogs, bayheads, low pinelands, savannas, flatwoods, wet woodlands, pocosins.
- Habit: Often colony-forming shrub up to 12 feet tall, with rhizomes.
- Stems: Slender, green to gray, strongly angled.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, evergreen, shiny, leathery, elliptic to obovate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, without teeth, smooth, dark green above, paler and minutely dotted beneath, up to 4 inches long, up to 2 inches wide.
- Flowers: Several in axillary clusters on branches of the previous season; flower stalks up to 1/2 inch long, sparsely hairy.
- Sepals: 5, green, united at base, up to 1/3 inch long, sometimes persistent in fruit.
- Petals: 5, pink varying to white or red, united to form a short cylinder, 1/3-1/2 inch long.
- Stamens: 10.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules ovoid to nearly spherical, brown, with pale sutures, up to 1/4 inch long.
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