Epilobium ciliatum (Northern Willowherb) - photos and description
General: Upright perennial, branching near top, or single stemmed. Stems pubescent. This plant can be weedy, I'm weeding it out of my garden all summer.
Flowers: Flowers are pink to white in colour, 7 mm in diameter, with four cleft petals, and found at stem tips.
Leaves: Leaves lanceolate, opposite, toothed, glabrous, sessile, puberulent. We measured a leaf at 6.5 cm long to 3 cm wide.
Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 100 cm, height of plant in above photo to 60 cm.
Habitat: Habitat is sloughs, stream sides, and other wet places across the prairies, parklands, and boreal forest.
Abundance: Common.
Origin: Native.
Synonym: Listed in some of the field guides we use as Epilobium glandulosum.
How to identify this species of Epilobium: Flowers less than 12 mm diameter, plants are perennial, leaves toothed and lanceolate in shape.
When and where photographed: Photos taken July 11th, swamp with beaver dams, Cypress Hills, 450 km southwest of Regina, SK, and August 27th, wet ground in poplar woods, about 25 km east of our home in Regina, SK.