LOBELIACEAE 



LOBELIA FAMILY 



GREAT LOBELIA 



Lobelia siphilitica L. 



The Great Lobelia is common in low grounds from Maine and 

 Ontario to South Dakota and south to Georgia, Louisiana and 

 Colorado. It is perennial by short offsets and blooms from July to 

 October. 



The stem is somewhat hairy, 

 rather stout and very leafy. It is 

 usually unbranched and grows 1-3 

 feet high. The leaves are nearly 

 smooth and 2-6 inches long. The 

 lower usually have short petioles, 

 and the upper are sessile. 



Deep blue or very rarely white 

 flowers are densely arranged in a 

 spikelike raceme. The flower parts 

 are attached above the ovary. The 

 calyx is quite hairy and has 5 

 narrow lobes, and in the sinuses 

 between them are large earlike, 

 deflexed appendages. The blue 

 corolla is split down i side and 2- 

 lipped at the end. There are 5 

 stamens with their anthers united 

 in a ring around the style. Three 

 of the anthers are larger than the 

 other 2, which have a tuft of hairs 

 at the tip. The ovary is 2-celled and the stigma 2-lobed. The 

 fruit is a capsule containing hundreds of minute brown seeds. 



Much daintier, with smaller blue flowers, is the Downy Lobelia, 

 Lobelia puberula Michx., frequent in moist sandy places throughout 

 the southern third of the state. The downy stems are very slender 

 and unbranched. Leaves are sessile, oblong-lanceolate, densely short 

 haired and very minutely toothed. The flowers are in bracted long 

 spikelike racemes. The calyx has 5 elongated hairy lobes and the 

 corolla is distinctly 2-lipped with the 3 broader lobes beneath. The 

 larger anthers are minutely bearded. The fruit is a many-seeded 

 capsule. This perennial is found from southern New Jersey to Florida, 

 west to Illinois, Kansas and Texas, and blooms from August to 

 October. 



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