Intro: Erect to spreading aquatic perennial found in swamp forests, especially cypress-gum forests, and in backwater sloughs, marshes and ditches.
Stems: Stems stout, succulent, branched, the upper part covered in stiff spreading hairs; lower portion trailing and rooting at nodes to form mats.
Leaves: Leaves alternate, short-petiolate to sessile, elliptic to lance-shaped, 2-5 in. long, smooth to sparsely hairy. There are spines to 1/2 in. long in some leaf axils.
Inforescence:
Flowers: Flowers in small clusters in upper leaf axils; blue or bluish-purple; broadly bell-shaped; consisting of 5 oval petals, 5 narrow sepals with spreading hairs like those on stem, 5 stamens and a green ovary in the center.
Fruits: Fruit a round capsule surrounded by persistent calyx.
Comments:
Height: to 1 1/2 ft.
plant sale text:
bloom table text:
description: Erect to spreading aquatic perennial found in swamp forests, especially cypress-gum forests, and in backwater sloughs, marshes and ditches.
stems: Stems stout, succulent, branched, the upper part covered in stiff spreading hairs; lower portion trailing and rooting at nodes to form mats.
leaves: Leaves alternate, short-petiolate to sessile, elliptic to lance-shaped, 2-5 in. long, smooth to sparsely hairy. There are spines to 1/2 in. long in some leaf axils.
inflorescence:
flowers: Flowers in small clusters in upper leaf axils; blue or bluish-purple; broadly bell-shaped; consisting of 5 oval petals, 5 narrow sepals with spreading hairs like those on stem, 5 stamens and a green ovary in the center.
fruits: Fruit a round capsule surrounded by persistent calyx.
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