Carolina or rough-leaf yellow loosestrife

Lysimachia herbemontii Elliott

Stems erect, usually simple or sparingly branched, 3-6.5 dm, stipitate-glandular, especially distally; rhizomes somewhat thickened and almost fleshy; bulblets absent. Leaves whorled; petiole absent; blade lanceolate, 2-5.5 × 0.8-2 cm, base rounded to truncate, not decurrent, margins entire, slightly revolute, eciliate, apex acute, surfaces dark-punctate, especially abaxially and/or apically (sometimes obscurely so), glabrous; venation palmate, main veins 3-5. Inflorescences mostly terminal, somewhat leafy racemes, 3-10 cm. Pedicels 0.4-2 cm, stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals 5, calyx streaked with dark resin canals, 3-6 mm, minutely stipitate-glandular, especially distally, lobes narrowly lanceolate, margins thin; petals 5, corolla yellow, streaked with reddish black resin canals, rotate, 6-9 mm, lobes with margins entire, apex acute to acuminate, stipitate-glandular; filaments connate 1-1.5 mm, shorter than corolla; staminodes absent. Capsules 3-4 mm, not punctate, glabrous. 2n = 42.

Flowering early summer. Swamp margins, wet pine savannas and pocosins; 0-300 m; N.C., S.C.

The common name "rough-leaf yellow loosestrife" includes a misinterpretation of the specific epithet, which originally referred to the whorled leaves resembling those of some species of Asperula Linnaeus (Rubiaceae).

Lysimachia asperulifolia is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants.