Lysimachia thyrsiflora
 
Tufted Loosestrife

Normal Leaf Bottom Close-Up

Good Spirit Lake Provincial Park
24-June-2006

Note that the key to the genera in Budd's Flora requires:

plants with normal opposite stem leaves; NOT [plants with scale-like lower stem leaves, upper leaves in a whorl below flowers]

In fact, the lower stem leaves of L. thyrsiflora are scale-like.

bullet

Thyrsiflora:  Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora (BF) and Flora of Alberta (FOA) leading to this species.  
bullet

leaves attenuate at base, scarcely petioled; NOT [leaves petiolate]

bullet

leaves glandular-dotted

bullet

plants with flowers; NOT [plants not flowering but with bulblets in the upper leaf axils]

bullet

inflorescence axillary; NOT [inflorescence terminal]

bullet

flowers in peduncled racemes from leaf-axils; NOT [flowers borne on separate stalks in leaf-axils, sometimes appearing in whorls of 4]

bullet

inflorescence dense; NOT [inflorescence loose]

bullet

corolla-lobes linear; NOT [corolla-lobes broad]

 
bullet

Lysimachia: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus. 
bullet

plants perennial; NOT [plants annual]

bullet

erect plants; NOT [depressed plants], NOT [procumbent plants]

bullet

leaves all or chiefly cauline; NOT [leaves in a basal rosette or clustered at the ends of short branches of the caudex]

bullet

leaves opposite; NOT [leaves mostly alternate, the lower ones sometimes opposite], NOT [leaves clustered near the top of the stem]

bullet

flowers rarely in definite umbels; NOT [flowers commonly in terminal umbels]

bullet

corolla present

bullet

corolla yellow; NOT [corolla white], NOT [flowers scarlet]

bullet

capsule opening lengthwise; NOT [capsule circumscissile]

 

bullet

Primulaceae:  Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family.  The answers do not apply to all genera of Primulaceae found on the Canadian prairies, but they do apply to Lysimachia.
bullet

herbs; NOT shrubs or trees

bullet

plants green or with some chlorophyll

bullet

plants NOT twining

bullet

plants WITHOUT milky juice

bullet

flowers NOT in heads or spikes; NOT [flowers in long or short spikes], NOT [flowers in heads or in form resembling a head]

bullet

flowers with two floral rings, but with the petals wholly or partly united forming a tube or bell

bullet

corolla regular

bullet

stamens directly in front of corolla lobes; NOT [stamens alternating with corolla lobes, or twice their number]

bullet

ovary superior