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Lax Loosestrife
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Lax Loosestrife
P Native Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Lax Loosestrife
Botanical name: Lysimachia laxa    Family: Primulaceae (Primrose family)
Synonyms: Lysimachia ramosa, Lysimachia floribunda, Lysimachia grandiflora

Lax Loosestrife is an erect herb up to 60 cm tall, with numerous fibrous roots. Flowers arise solitary in axils of medial and upper leaves, on 2-4 cm long flower-stalks. They are yellow, 6-8 mm, deeply parted; tube about 2 mm; petals elliptic-obovate, tip blunt. Filaments fused basally into a about 0.5 mm high ring, free parts about 2.3 mm, flattened; anthers 2.5-3 mm. Style is about 3 mm. Sepals are ovate-elliptic, 3-4 mm, margin somewhat membranous, often stalked glandular, tip tapering. Stems are distinctly four-edged, up to 7 mm in diameter, woody at base, usually many branched. Leaves are alternate, nearly stalkless or leaf-stalk up to 1 cm; leaf blade lanceshaped to elliptic-lanceshaped, 3-11 x 0.5-2.8 cm, tapering to both ends, below hairless, minutely brownish glandular, above; midvein and veins prominent. Capsule is slightly depressed-spherical, about 5 mm in diameter, 5-valved to base. Lax Loosestrife is found in mixed forests, at altitudes of 1000-2100 m, from East Himalaya to China (Yunnan) and Indo-China, Sri Lanka, Sumatera to Lesser Sunda Islands.

Identification credit: Hussain Barbhuiya Photographed in Gangtok, Sikkim.

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