Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Cuphea viscosissima Jacq.
- Family: Loosestrife (Lythraceae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: The stems and the opposite leaves are covered with sticky hairs. The 6 purple petals and usually 11 stamens are also distinctive.
- Habitat: Open woods, thickets, old fields, prairies, wet meadows, ditches, edge of ponds and lakes, along streams, gravel bars.
- Habit: Annual herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Upright, slender, sticky-hairy, up to 20 inches tall.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, ovate-lanceolate, pointed at the tip, more or less rounded at the base, without teeth, usually sticky-hairy, up to 1 1/2 inches long.
- Flowers: 1-2 in the axils of the leaves, on short stalks.
- Sepals: 6, united into a long tube, up to 1 inch long, glandular-hairy.
- Petals: 6, unequal in size, purple, free from each other.
- Stamens: Usually 11.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, with a curved gland at its base.
- Fruits: Capsules oblongoid, containing several flattened, brownish seeds.
- Notes: This species is sometimes called the clammy cuphea. Its scientific name is sometimes given as Cuphea petiolata.
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Return to Species List -- Group 7
Next Species -- Gulf Coast Swallow-wort (Cynanchum angustifolium)
