PHRYMACEAE 
LOPSEED 
Phryma Leptostachya L. 
LOPSEED FAMILY 
The Lopseed has no relatives, it alone constituting the family. 
However, it always has an abundance of neighbors for it mingles 
with many other kinds of plants in forest communities. It is 
found from New Brunswick to Manitoba, 
south to Florida and Kansas, and also in 
eastern and central Asia. 
It is a perennial herb with a slender, 
branched, somewhat 4-sided stem that 
grows 1-3 feet high. The leaves are very 
thin, the upper often sessile but the lower 
distinctly petioled. . 
The purplish or rose flowers are pro- 
duced in July and August in narrow spikes 
3-6 inches long. The cylindrical calyx is 
2-lipped, the upper lip being 2-cleft and 
the lower much shorter and 3-toothed. The 
corolla is also cylindrical and 2-lipped, the 
upper lip erect, concave and nearly entire, 
and the lower larger, spreading and 3-lobed. 
The 4 stamens, in pairs, are included within 
the corolla tube. The pistil consists of a I- 
celled ovary, aslender style and a 2-lobed 
stigma. As the fruit matures, the calyx 
which encloses the 
akene is reflexed 
downward against 
the stem. It is be- 
cause of this char- 
qeter tuat the 
plant is called 
Lopseed. 
€ 
From shapeless roots and ugly bulbous things, 
What gorgeous beauty springs! 
Such infinite variety appears, 
A hundred artists in a hundred years 
Could never copy from a floral world 
The marvels that in leaf and bud lie curled. 
My Flower Room—E La WHEELER WILCOX 
317 
