Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Anagallis arvensis L.
- Family: Primrose (Primulaceae)
- Flowering: May-August
- Field Marks: This species is characterized by its small, ovate, opposite leaves and its 5-parted scarlet to salmon-colored flowers on slender stalks.
- Habitat: Moist, disturbed soil, often in fallow fields, lawns, ditches, sand and gravel banks.
- Habit: Much branched annual herb.
- Stems: Slender, square, smooth, up to 1 foot long, spreading or ascending.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, oval to ovate, more or less pointed at the tip, rounded at the sessile or nearly clasping base, without teeth, smooth, black-dotted on the lower surface, up to 3/4 inch long.
- Flowers: Solitary, on slender stalks as long as or longer than the leaves.
- Sepals: 5, united at the base, smooth.
- Petals: 5, united at the base, usually scarlet, rarely blue or white, up to 1/8 inch long, with minute teeth.
- Stamens: 5, attached to the petals.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules spherical, about 1/6 inch in diameter, smooth, many-seeded.
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