Prairie pinweed Prairie pinweed

Herbs, perennial. Stems: basal produced; flowering erect, 25–45 cm, densely sericeous. Leaves of flowering stems alternate or subopposite; blade narrowly oblanceolate, 13–20 × 1.5–3 mm, apex acute, <often mucronate>, abaxial surface pilose, adaxial glabrous. Pedicels 1 per axil, 1.6–2 mm. Flowers: calyx 1.6–1.8 mm, outer sepals shorter than inner. Capsules subglobose to broadly ovoid, (1.8–)2–2.5 × 2–2.5 mm, ± equaling calyx. Seeds 3–4.

Flowering summer–fall; fruiting fall. Sandy, open fields, grasslands, lakeshores, woodland margins; 100–800 m; Ont.; Ill., Iowa, Mich., Minn., Nebr., N.Dak., Wis.

Some individuals of Lechea stricta can be difficult to determine with certainty; the extremes of variation of L. stricta often grade into that of L. intermedia and L. pulchella.