Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Perennial with erect stems, usually simple to 80 cm tall, glabrous to sparsely pubescent at base.
Leaves: Alternate, cauline, linear to lanceolate to oblanceolate, 4-8 cm long, to about 6 mm wide, upper ones attenuate at the apex, glabrous, sometimes petioles ciliate, lower leaves petiolate, often obovate and obtuse to rounded at the apex.
Flowers: Loose, terminal raceme with 10-many flowers, flowers 15-25 mm long, with a showy and conspicuously bilabiate corolla, subtended by linear-subulate floral bracts, the corolla is blue with a whitish eye, the tube hairy within, the upper lip 2-lobed erect to reflexed and linear-spatulate, the lower lip 3-lobed obovate and spreading, with 5 stamens on flattened filaments, united toward top.
Fruits: Capsule 6-9 mm long.
Ecology: Found in marshy meadows and along stream banks from 5,500-9,000 ft (1676-2743 m); flowers July-October.
Notes: Distinctive with its bilabiate but united petals, easy to distinguish from L. cardinalis in flower, but very delicate and difficult to distinguish vegetatively.
Ethnobotany: Unknown
Etymology: Lobelia is named for Matthias de l-Obel (1538-1616) a Flemish botanist, while anatina is of uncertain origin, with ana being Greek for again, and anatina being Latin for duck meat.
Synonyms: None
Editor: SBuckley, 2010