Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Dicliptera brachiata (Pursh) Spreng.
- Family: Acanthus (Acanthaceae)
- Flowering: August-October
- Field Marks: This species is distinguished by its combination of opposite, toothless leaves, opposite branching, angled stem, small, bluish, funnel-shaped flowers in short spikes, 2 stamens, and conspicuously swollen nodes.
- Habitat: Floodplains, bottomlands, along rivers and streams, lowland woods.
- Habit: Perennial herb with thickened fibrous roots.
- Stems: Upright, angular, smooth or hairy, with swollen nodes, up to 4 feet tall.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, ovate to lanceolate-ovate, pointed at the tip, tapering or rounded at the base, without teeth, smooth or sparsely hairy, up to 6 inches long, up to 3 inches wide; stalks of lower leaves longer than those of upper leaves.
- Flowers: Several in axillary and terminal spikes, subtended by ciliate bracts.
- Sepals: 5, united below, hairy, the lobes very slender, up to 1/6 inch long.
- Petals: 5, blue or pink, united below to form a funnel, the lobes unequal and 2-lipped.
- Stamens: 2, usually enclosed by the upper lip of the petals.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules ovoid to ellipsoid, brown, flattened, up to 1/4 inch long; seeds brown, flattened.
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