The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links
Photo is of parent taxon

floating primrose-willow, floating water primrose

Habit Herbs, perennial, subshrubs, or emergent aquatics, creeping, floating, or emergent and ascending, rooting at nodes, when floating often forming spongy, white pneumatophores at nodes, when erect with spongy base.
Stems

usually densely villous, rarely sparsely so, hairs often viscid when fresh, or glabrate on submerged stems.

decumbent to erect or ascending, terete, sometimes angled distally.

Leaves

alternate, sometimes fascicled;

stipules often asymmetrical;

petioles of basal leaves (0.5–)0.8–1.6 cm, those of distal leaves 0.5–2.8 cm;

blade (0.4–)1–6(–9.5) cm, apex glandular-mucronate, surfaces not shiny, usually densely hirtellous, rarely glabrous abaxially.

alternate or fascicled.

Flowers

anthers on short filaments (0.7–)0.9–1.8 mm, those on long filaments (0.8–)1.1–2.2 mm;

ovary 6–10 mm, apex truncate, densely hirtellous, sometimes only on apical 1/2, stigma usually as long as anthers, rarely exserted beyond them.

5(or 6)-merous;

petals present, yellow [white];

stamens 2 times as many as sepals, [rarely as many as];

pollen shed as monads.

Capsules

(20–)24–32 × 2–4 mm, pedicel 7–38(–60) mm.

cylindric, subcylindric, or subclavate, terete, subterete, or obscurely angled, often up-curved, with thick, woody walls, irregularly and tardily dehiscent.

Seeds

10–15 per locule.

in 1 row per locule, pendulous and firmly embedded in woody, coherent segment of endocarp, raphe inconspicuous.

2n

= 16 (32).

= 16, 32, 48, 80, 96.

Ludwigia peploides subsp. montevidensis

Ludwigia sect. Jussiaea

Phenology Flowering summer-early fall.
Habitat Wet places, along slow-moving rivers, streams, canals, ditches, often growing into main channels as aquatic weeds.
Elevation 0–500[–2000] m. (0–1600[–6600] ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; LA; South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay) [Introduced in North America; introduced also in Europe (France), Pacific Islands (New Zealand), Australia]
[BONAP county map]
United States; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; s Asia; Africa [Introduced in Europe, Pacific Islands, Australia]
Discussion

In the flora area, subsp. montevidensis is introduced in California (P. H. Raven 1963c), where it was first collected in 1906 (El Dorado County, Rixford s.n., CAS), and in Louisiana. Subspecies montevidensis occasionally forms masses of vegetation that can obstruct water flow and navigation in California and elsewhere.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Species 9 (3 in the flora).

This cosmopolitan polyploid section of nine variable species (11 taxa) includes three diploid species (n = 8), four tetraploids (n = 16), one hexaploid [Ludwigia grandiflora, n = 24; P. H. Raven and W. Tai (1979) reported one anomalous count of n = 48], and one decaploid (L. hexapetala, n = 40; see also G. L. Nesom and J. T. Kartesz 2000). One persistent triploid (2n = 24) hybrid, described as L. ×taiwanensis C. I. Peng [L. adscendens (n = 16) × L. peploides subsp. stipulacea (n = 8); Peng 1990] is widespread in southern China and Taiwan. E. Zardini et al. (1991) reported several other natural hybrids.

Most species of sect. Jussiaea have non-naturalized distributions restricted to the New World. Section Jussiaea differs from most diplostemonous sections by releasing its pollen as monads and having woody, subcylindric capsules with uniseriate, firmly embedded seeds. Most species in sect. Jussiaea are vigorously aquatic, and several (including L. peploides, L. hexapetala, and L. grandiflora) can be invasive weeds in wetlands and wet agricultural areas; the latter two, or all three, species have recently become major invasive species in California, particularly in the Russian and Sacramento river drainages and in the San Diego region, in Arizona (especially Gila and Salt rivers), and in Washington (M. Wood 2006; P. C. Hoch and B. J. Grewell 2012).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 10. FNA vol. 10.
Parent taxa Onagraceae > subfam. Ludwigioideae > Ludwigia > sect. Jussiaea > Ludwigia peploides Onagraceae > subfam. Ludwigioideae > Ludwigia
Sibling taxa
L. peploides subsp. glabrescens, L. peploides subsp. peploides
Subordinate taxa
Synonyms Jussiaea montevidensis, J. repens var. montevidensis, L. adscendens var. montevidensis, L. peploides var. montevidensis Jussiaea, Gen., Adenola, Cubospermum, Jussiaea section oligospermum, L. section oligospermum, L. section oocarpon, Oocarpon
Name authority (Sprengel) P. H. Raven: Reinwardtia 6: 395. (1964) (Linnaeus) Baillon: Hist. Pl. 6: 463. (1876)
Web links