Common Name: LOOSESTRIFE FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, shrub, tree. Stem: 4-angled or cylindric. Leaf: simple, entire, generally opposite, 4-ranked (alternate, whorled). Inflorescence: flowers terminal or in axils of upper leaves or leaf-like bracts, 1 or in +- dense cymes or along short shoots, sessile or not, subtended by [0]2 bractlets. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; hypanthium bell-shaped to cylindric, membranous or leathery, persistent in fruit; sepals appearing as hypanthium lobes, 4--9, epicalyx lobes alternate sepals or 0; petals, stamens inserted on inner hypanthium; petals 4--6 or 0, alternate sepals, crinkled, deciduous; stamens generally = or 2 × sepals, included or exserted; ovary generally superior, chambers 2--6[many], style generally slender, stigma head-like. Fruit: dry capsule or leathery berry, dehiscent into 2--4 valves or irregularly. Seed: 3--many.
Genera In Family: +- 28 genera, 600 species: temperate, tropics, generally in wet habitats. Some ornamental or cultivated for medicine, dyes. Note: "Epicalyx lobes" (lobes on calyx) formerly called "appendages," "hypanthium" in Lythraceae (and Onagraceae) including receptacle, sometimes called "flower cup" or "flower tube". Punicaceae (Punica) included here.
eFlora Treatment Author: Shirley A. Graham
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.

Habit: Annual. Stem: prostrate to erect, branched or not, glabrous. Leaf: opposite, sessile, linear to lanceolate [oblanceolate], with basal ear-like lobes. Inflorescence: axillary 1--5(14)-flowered cymes. Flower: radial, hypanthium bell- to urn-shaped, 4--8-ribbed; sepals 4, epicalyx lobes <= sepals, horn-like, thick; petals (0)4, obovate; stamens 4(5--12), exserted (included); style long, slender [short, stocky]. Fruit: capsule, +- spheric, wall smooth, not striate at 10×, thin, dry, splitting irregularly. Seed: many, +- 1 mm.
Etymology: (Paul Ammann, 1634--1691, director of medical garden, University of Leipzig, author of flora of Leipzig area, 1675)
Reference: [Graham et al. 2011 Bot J Linn Soc 166:1--19]