Flora of North America species comparison

weakly erect to ascending, many from base, forming clumps 1–1.5 m diam., often branched distally, 30–60 cm.

erect to decumbent or prostrate.

in a weakly developed basal rosette and cauline, basal 9–23 × 1–2.5 cm, cauline 5–11 × 1.5–3.5 cm;

petiole 0.5–1.5 cm;

blade very narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, margins undulate, remotely and bluntly dentate.

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.

axillary, flowers solitary, leafy spikes, racemes, or panicles.

opening near sunset, not strongly scented;

buds with free tips terminal, erect, 3–10 mm;

floral tube straight, 100–165(–190) mm;

sepals 25–50 mm;

petals yellow, fading deep reddish orange, broadly obovate with truncate apex, or obcordate, 30–55 mm;

filaments 18–35 mm, anthers 10–19 mm;

style 140–235 mm, stigma exserted beyond anthers at anthesis.

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.

a loculicidal capsule or indehiscent berry or nutlike.

erect to slightly spreading at acute angle from stem, cylindrical, 25–35 ×4–5.5 mm, dehiscent at least 3/4 their length.

numerous, in 2 distinct rows per locule, dark reddish brown, sometimes with darker flecks, obovoid, asymmetrical, irregularly angled, 1.5–2.1 × 1–1.2 mm, surface irregularly pitted and with collapsed papillae.

smooth or sculptured, sometimes with a coma or wings, with straight, oily embryo, 4-nucleate embryo sac, endosperm absent.

= 14.