Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Lythrum hyssopifolia

grass-poly, hyssop loosestrife, hyssop-leaf loosestrife
Habit Herbs annual or short-lived perennial, slender, 1.5–6 dm, gray-green glaucous, glabrous.
Stems

often from creeping rhizome, erect or weakly erect, sparsely branched distally.
Leaves

mostly alternate, sometimes opposite proximally, overlapping and scarcely smaller distally, equal to or longer than internodes;

sessile;

blade oblong to linear, 5–30 × 1–10 mm, base rounded.
Inflorescences

racemes.
Flowers

alternate, subsessile, monostylous;

floral tube without red spots, obconic, becoming cylindrical, 4–6 × 0.5–1 mm;

epicalyx segments 2 times length of sepals;

petals pink or rose, oblong to obovate, 1.5–3(–5) × 0.7–1.3 mm, 1/2 floral tube length;

nectary absent;

stamens (2–)4–6(–12).
Capsules

septicidal or septifragal.
Seeds

ca. 20, obovoid, 0.8 × 0.5 mm.
2n

= 20.

Lythrum hyssopifolia
Phenology Flowering summer–fall.
Habitat Disturbed moist or sea­sonally flooded ground, drying pond margins, vernal pools, marshes.
Elevation 50–1600 m. (200–5200 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; MA; ME; MI; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OR; PA; RI; WA; BC; ON; Europe; Asia [Introduced in North America; introduced also in South America (Argentina, Chile), Africa, Pacific Islands (New Zealand), Australia]
[WildflowerSearch map]
Discussion

Lythrum hyssopifolia has been present in the eastern United States since at least the early 1800s and now has a scattered and disjunct distribution in the eastern and western states and Ontario. Successful establishment is attributed in part to its self-compatible, monostylous breeding system. In Australia, L. hyssopifolia has been responsible for the poisoning death of young sheep that grazed on canola stubble contaminated with it (B. Crawford 2002).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 10.
Parent taxa Lythraceae > Lythrum
Sibling taxa
L. alatum, L. californicum, L. curtissii, L. flagellare, L. junceum, L. lineare, L. ovalifolium, L. portula, L. salicaria, L. tribracteatum, L. virgatum
Synonyms L. adsurgens
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 447. (1753)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers