Please try our next iteration of the Michigan Flora Online here. Beginning on February 1, 2023, michiganflora.net will point to this new site.

The new site offers several benefits over the existing website, including real coordinate mapping, giving a clearer view of the density of documentation as well as more precision about plant distributions and their link to landforms. We will also have the ability to update species pages more regularly, both in terms of new collections and as more existing Michigan specimens are georeferenced. In addition, we have a better photo display, and offer indented keys.

1. Sepals and petals 5; capsules elongate, with conspicuous pedicels.

L. peploides

1. Sepals and petals (if present) 4; capsules short, sessile or on pedicels up to 5 mm long.

2. Leaves opposite; plants prostrate or floating in shallow water, usually rooting at the nodes.

L. palustris

2. Leaves alternate; plants erect.

3. Flowers on distinct pedicels ca. 2–5 mm long; petals conspicuous, about equaling the sepals; roots usually tuberous-thickened.

L. alternifolia

3. Flowers sessile or nearly so; petals apparently none; roots not becoming thickened (but plant stoloniferous and the stem often with well developed spongy tissue at base).

4. Bractlets at or (usually) above base of ovary 2.5–6 (–8) mm long; capsules, leaves, and stem glabrous.

L. polycarpa

4. Bractlets at base of ovary 0–2.6 mm long; capsules, leaves, and upper part of stem at least sparsely strigose.

L. sphaerocarpa