Epilobium hirsutum |
Onagraceae |
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codlins-and-cream, fiddle grass, fiddle grass willowherb, great or great hairy willowherb, great willowherb, hairy willlowherb, hairy willow-herb, épilobe hirsute |
evening-primrose family |
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Habit | Herbs usually robust and rank, sometimes woody near base, with thick, ropelike stolons to 1 m with scattered cataphylls and, often, terminal leafy rosette. | Herbs, annual or perennial, shrubs, or subshrubs, [lianas or trees], terrestrial, amphibious, or aquatic, unarmed, not clonal; often with epidermal oil cells, usually with internal phloem, abundant raphides in vegetative cells. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | erect to ascending, often clumped, terete, 25–120(–250) cm, unusually thick, 3–9 mm diam., well branched mainly in distal 1/2, densely long-villous throughout, usually mixed glandular puberulent distally, rarely sparsely villous or densely white-tomentose. |
erect to decumbent or prostrate. |
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Leaves | opposite proximal to inflorescence, alternate distally, sessile and ± clasping stem; blade elliptic-lanceolate to narrowly obovate or elliptic, 4–12(–23) × 0.3–4(–5) cm, base cuneate to attenuate, margins serrulate, 15–50 teeth per side, veins 6–9 per side, apex acute to acuminate or obtuse proximally, surfaces ± densely villous; bracts moderately reduced. |
usually deciduous, usually alternate or opposite, sometimes whorled, simple, usually cauline, sometimes basal and forming rosettes; stipules present, intrapetiolar, usually caducous, relatively small, or absent (tribes Epilobieae and Onagreae); sessile or subsessile to petiolate; blade margins usually entire, toothed, or pinnately lobed, rarely bipinnately lobed. |
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Inflorescences | erect racemes or panicles, usually densely villous and glandular puberulent, rarely tomentose. |
axillary, flowers solitary, leafy spikes, racemes, or panicles. |
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Flowers | erect; buds 5–9 × 1.8–4.5 mm, sometimes beaked; pedicel 3–11 mm; floral tube 1.3–2.9 × 2.2–4 mm, conspicuous ring of spreading hairs near mouth inside; sepals oblong-linear, often keeled, 6–12 × 1–3 mm, abaxial surface densely pubescent; petals bright pink to rose-purple, rarely white, broadly obcordate, 9–20 × 7–15 mm, apical notch 1–3 mm; filaments white or pink, those of longer stamens 5–10 mm, those of shorter ones 2.5–6 mm; anthers cream, 1.5–3 × 0.6–1.2 mm; ovary 15–34 mm, densely villous and glandular puberulent; style white or pink, 5–12 mm, usually glabrous, stigma deeply 4-lobed, 1.8–2.2 × 3–5.5 mm, lobes recurved or spreading, exserted beyond anthers. |
usually bisexual, (protandrous in Chamaenerion, Clarkia, Epilobium, [and most species of Lopezia]; protogynous in Circaea and Fuchsia), sometimes unisexual (gynodioecious or dioecious, [subdioecious]), usually actinomorphic, sometimes zygomorphic, (2–)4(–7)-merous; perianth and androecium epigynous; sepals persistent after anthesis (in Ludwigia), or all flower parts deciduous after anthesis; floral tube present or absent in Chamaenerion, Ludwigia, [and most species of Lopezia]; sepals usually green or red, rarely pink or purple, valvate; petals present, rarely absent, often fading darker with age, imbricate or convolute, sometimes clawed; nectary present; stamens 2 times as many as sepals and in 2 series, antisepalous set usually longer, rarely all equal (Chamaenerion), or as many as sepals, [in Lopezia reduced to 2 or 1 plus 1 sterile staminode]; filaments distinct; anthers usually versatile, sometimes basifixed, dithecal, polysporangiate, with tapetal septa, sometimes also with parenchymatous septa, opening by longitudinal slits, pollen grains united by viscin threads, (2 or)3(–5)-aperturate, shed singly or in tetrads or polyads; ovary inferior, usually with as many carpels and locules as sepals, rarely 1 or 2 (Circaea and Gayophytum), septa sometimes thin or absent at maturity; placentation axile or parietal; style 1, stigma 1, with as many lobes as sepals or clavate to globose, papillate or not, and wet with free-running secretions to dry without the secretions; ovules 1 to numerous per locule, in 1 or several rows or clustered, anatropous, bitegmic. |
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Fruit | a loculicidal capsule or indehiscent berry or nutlike. |
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Capsules | often flushed purple, 25–90 mm, surfaces usually densely villous and glandular puberulent, rarely glabrescent; pedicel 5–20 mm. |
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Seeds | narrowly obovoid, 0.8–1.2 × 0.3–0.6 mm, chalazal collar inconspicuous, dark brown, surface coarsely papillose; coma easily detached, tawny or dull white, 7–10 mm. |
smooth or sculptured, sometimes with a coma or wings, with straight, oily embryo, 4-nucleate embryo sac, endosperm absent. |
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2n | = 36. |
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Epilobium hirsutum |
Onagraceae |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Sep. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Low wet areas along streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes, roadside ditches, along railroad tracks, marshes and swampy areas. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–150[–3000] m. (0–500[–9800] ft.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
CO; CT; IL; IN; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OR; PA; RI; UT; VT; WA; WI; WV; BC; NB; NS; ON; PE; QC; Eurasia; Africa [Introduced in North America]
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North America; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Bermuda; Eurasia; Africa; Atlantic Islands; Indian Ocean Islands; Pacific Islands; Australasia; nearly worldwide; primarily New World |
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Discussion | Epilobium hirsutum is very widespread in cool temperate Eurasia and montane regions, occurring throughout Europe except in the far north (P. H. Raven 1968), through the Caucasus and central Asia (E. I. Steinberg 1949) to Nepal (Raven 1962), China (Chen C. J. et al. 1992), and Japan (A. W. Lievens and P. C. Hoch 1999). It occurs as well along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, through East Africa to southern Africa, and in the Canary and Cape Verde Islands (Raven 1967). Epilobium hirsutum exceeds almost all other species of the genus in stature, so its size, very large flowers, and densely villous aspect make it easy to identify. R. L. Stuckey (1970) provided a detailed account of the introduction and spread of E. hirsutum in North America, noting the earliest known collection (July 1829) was from Newport, Rhode Island. Most early collections appeared in waste areas, particularly near harbor ballast piles, although some may have been grown in gardens. By the 1890s this species was well established along the Atlantic coastal region from New Jersey and Philadelphia through New England, and around Niagara Falls in the Great Lakes region. During the twentieth century, E. hirsutum spread extensively in southern Ontario and Quebec, south along the Atlantic coast to Maryland, and to all of the states along the southern shores of the Great Lakes, most recently including Wisconsin (1970), and Indiana (1972). It occurs in much the same habitat as that of another, more widely publicized invader, Lythrum salicaria, and sometimes is recorded as a companion species. The earliest known collection in western North America was made in 1933 in Bingen (Klickitat County), Washington. Whether from that introduction or others, E. hirsutum is now naturalized and widespread in the Pacific Northwest. It also was reported recently from the Denver region in Colorado and near Midway in Utah. Epilobium grandiflorum F. H. Wiggers and E. grandiflorum Allioni are illegitimate names that pertain here. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Genera 22, species 664 (17 genera, 277 species in the flora). Members of the Onagraceae are especially richly represented in North America. The family comprises annual and perennial herbs, with some shrubs and a few small to medium-sized trees. Most species occur in open habitats, ranging from dry to wet, with a few species of Ludwigia aquatic, from the tropics to the deserts of western North America, temperate forests, and arctic tundra; some species of Epilobium, Ludwigia, and Oenothera can be weeds in disturbed habitats. Members of the family are characterized by 4-merous flowers (sometimes 2-, 5-, or 7-merous), an inferior ovary, a floral tube in most species, stamens usually two times as many as sepals, and pollen connected by viscin threads. Flowers are usually bisexual, sometimes unisexual, and plants are gynodioecious, matinal, diurnal, or vespertine, self-compatible or self-incompatible, often outcrossing and then pollinated by a wide variety of insects or birds, or autogamous (P. H. Raven 1979; W. L. Wagner et al. 2007). Onagraceae are known in considerable systematic detail, and information is available on comparative breeding systems and pollination biology, on chromosome numbers and cytogenetic relations, often involving translocations, and on vegetative, floral, and seed anatomy, palynology, and embryology. The phylogeny of the family is known in reasonably good detail, with most parts of the trees generally well-supported. The suprageneric and generic classification presented by W. L. Wagner et al. (2007) differs in a number of ways from the previous classification (P. H. Raven 1979, 1988). Onagraceae are divided into two subfamilies based on a fundamental basal split recognized in all phylogenetic studies (R. H. Eyde 1981; P. C. Hoch et al. 1993; R. A. Levin et al. 2003, 2004; V. S. Ford and L. D. Gottlieb 2007), with Ludwigia on one branch (as Ludwigioideae), and the rest of the family on a second branch (as Onagroideae). Onagroideae are subdivided into six tribes: Circaeeae (including Fuchsieae), Epilobieae, Gongylocarpeae, Hauyeae, Lopezieae, and Onagreae. The Epilobieae and Onagreae are diverse; together they constitute fully two-thirds of the species in the family and include 15 of the 22 genera. The classification following Wagner et al. can be viewed on the Onagraceae web site by Wagner and Hoch at http://botany.si.edu/Onagraceae. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 10. | FNA vol. 10. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Onagraceae > subfam. Onagroideae > tribe Epilobieae > Epilobium > sect. Epilobium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Chamaenerion hirsutum, E. amplexicaule, E. aquaticum, E. hirsutum var. villosum, E. villosum | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 347. (1753) | Jussieu | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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