Montana Field Guide

Fibrous-rooted annual. Stems ascending to erect, puberulent, 5–25 cm, branched at the base. Herbage glabrate. Leaves alternate, sessile, lanceolate to oblanceolate, weakly dentate, 5–20 mm long. Inflorescence a crowded, leafy-bracteate spike. Flowers pink; hypanthium ca. 1 mm long; sepals erect, ca. 1 mm long; petals 2–3 mm long. Capsule sessile, clavate, 6–8 mm long, puberulent with a beak 1 mm long or longer; seeds reticulate, in 4 or more rows, without a coma (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Wagner et al. (2007, Syst. Bot. Monogr. Vol. 83) treat this as Epilobium campestre (Jepson) Hoch & W.L. Wagner.

Mossy shores of shallow ponds, ephemeral wetlands; plains, valleys (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus ternarius, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, Bombus suckleyi, and Bombus kirbiellus (Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch and Strange 2012, Koch et al. 2012, Pyke et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).