Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Non-Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Glabrate perennial with stems matted, floating, or creeping 10-30 cm long, branches ascending.

Leaves: Alternate, oblong to round, subentire, glabrous to spreading hairy above, less than 10 cm long, to 3.5 cm wide.

Flowers: Solitary in axils, pedicellate, with 5 sepals, 3-12 mm long, petals 5, these 7-24 mm, with 10 stamens in 2 unequal sets, each with a depressed white haired nectary at the base.

Fruits: Reflexed capsule 10-40 mm long, cylindric, on pedicel 6-90 mm long, more or less 5-angled, hard.

Ecology: Found in marshy to moist soils from 4,500-5,000 ft (1372-1524 m); flowers April-October.

Notes: Distinguished among the Ludwigia by the alternate leaves.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Ludwigia is named for Christian Gottlieb Ludwig (1709-1773) a German botanist, while peploides means like or resembling the genus Peplis, which describes the appearance of the plant growing on mud rather than under water.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010

Stems prostrate or floating or ascending at the tip, rooting at the nodes, glabrous or very sparsely villosulous; lvs alternate, lanceolate to oblanceolate or obovate, narrowed below to a petiole 2-4 cm; fls 5-merous; ovary at anthesis cylindric, 7-12 mm, its pedicel 1-6 mm; pet mostly 1-1.5 cm; stamens 10; anthers 1-1.7 mm; fr sub cylindric, 10-nerved, 2-4 cm, its pedicel 3-8 cm; seeds uniseriate in each locule, individually enclosed by the endocarp, the seed and endocarp together 1 mm, subtruncate at the end opposite the funiculus; 2n=16. Ponds and swamps; s. Ind. to Kans., s. to La. and Tex., thence e. to N.C. and intr. about Phila. and probably elsewhere; pantropical. Our plants are var. glabrescens (Kuntze) Shinners. (Jussiaea repens, misapplied)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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