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Southern Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Floating Seedbox
Ludwigia peploides (HBK.) Raven

JPG -- Species Photo GIF -- Distribution Map

Family: Evening Primrose (Onagraceae)
Flowering: May-September
Field Marks: This species is readily recognized by its 5 large yellow petals, 10 stamens, inferior ovary, and long-stalked, alternate leaves.
Habitat: Shallow ponds, ditches, lakes, pools, streams, canals, usually in shallow water.
Habit: Perennial herb with floating or creeping stems that root at the nodes, often forming mats in shallow water.
Stems: Creeping or floating, smooth or slightly hairy, up to 3 feet long.
Leaves: Alternate, simple, oval to obovate to elliptic, rounded or pointed at the tip, narrowed to the base, up to 4 inches long, up to 1 3/4 inches wide, without teeth, smooth or less commonly sparsely hairy on the lower surface; leaf stalks often as long as the blade.
Flowers: Solitary in the axils of the upper leaves, up to 1 inch across, borne on long, smooth stalks up to 2 3/4 inches long.
Sepals: 5, green, united below and also to the ovary, the lobes up to 1/2 inch long.
Petals: 5, yellow, free from each other, up to 3/4 inch long.
Stamens: 10.
Pistils: Ovary inferior.
Fruits: Capsules elongated, cylindric, smooth, up to 2 inches long, up to 1/6 inch wide, with the sepals persistent; seeds smooth, embedded in the capsule.
Notes: This species tends to be aggressive and can form dense mats in shallow water. It used to be known as Jussiaea diffusa or J. repens.

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URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/floraso/species/8/ludwpepl.htm
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Page Last Modified: Saturday, 02-Feb-2013 06:22:27 EST
Menlo Park, CA [caww55]