Stems usually simple, slender, erect, 1 to 21/2 feet high, more or less pubescent. Leaves whorled, usually in fours or fives, sometimes the lower ones opposite, sessile or nearly so, lanceolate to ovate, pointed at the apex, I to 4 inches long, one-fourth to 1 inch wide, usually black-dotted, the upper ones usually reduced to a small size. Flowers yellow, one-fourth to one-half of an inch broad, axillary, usually one in the axis of each of the four or five leaves at each node, on slender stalks, one-half to \\ inches long. Corolla rotate, streaked with dark lines or spotted; sepals narrow and long pointed. Fruit a small capsule about as long as the calyx.

In moist soil, thickets and marshes. New Brunswick to Minnesota, south to Georgia, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Flowering from June to August.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 160

b. crosswort; whorled loosestrife Lysimachia quadrifolia