The Friends of the Wildflower Garden, Inc.
Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
The oldest public wildflower garden in the United States
Common Name
Swamp Candles (Bog Loosestrife, Bulbil Loosestrife, Swamp Loosestrife, Yellow Loosestrife.)
Scientific Name
Lysimachia terrestris (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.
Plant Family
Myrsine (Myrsinaceae)
Garden Location
Wetland - Marsh
Prime Season
Early Summer
Swamp Candles is an erect native perennial forb growing from 12 to 30+ inches high on erect smooth stems, that can be simple or branched, less often branched but damage to the top of the plant will usually produce branching stems. Stems can have maroon streaks.
Leaves are opposite to sub-opposite, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate (broadest below the middle), without a stalk or a very short stalk, the leaf surface is smooth but gland dotted. Leaf edges are entire, tapering to the base and tapering to the pointed tip. There is a single main vein, most prominent on the underside and some obscurely visible lateral veins on the upper surface.
Inflorescence: The inflorescence is a terminal smooth stalked raceme, that can reach 12 inches long, of long-stalked flower, not densely packed. If the plant is branched, there may be multiple racemes.
Flowers are five-parted with a yellow corolla that is streaked with black or maroon resin canals. The petal tips are pointed to slightly rounded. There are five stamens which are united in their base section by a reddish fleshy band that is attached to the petals, thus giving the stamens the appearance of an upright tube as they surround the style. Filaments are yellow, anthers darker yellow when in pollen. False stamens (staminodes) are absent. The base of the petals is tinged red. The calyx is very short with five green lanceolate very small sepals streaked with black or maroon resin canals and either smooth or with minute fine glandular hair on the margins.
Fruit: Fertile flowers produce a dark, dotted capsule, 3 to 3.5 mm in diameter that contains a number of small seeds. Late in the season, elongate reddish-brown bulblets, about 1 cm in size, may develop in the leaf axils near the top of the plant. Bulblets can be planted or rhizome sections taken for additional plants. Starting from seed is said to be difficult.
Habitat: Swamp Candles grows in wet areas - marshes, bogs, shorelines fens, and similar wet habitats. It has a rhizomatous root system from which it spreads. Full to partial sun needed.
Names: Swamp Candles was formerly slotted into the Primrose family (Primulaceae), but the change to Myrsine is explained at the page bottom. The genus name, Lysimachia, is from the Greek for either king Lysimachus or from lysis meaning "a release from" and mache is for "strife". The legend is that Lysimachus, king of Sicily, was walking through a field. A bull chased him. He grabbed a loosestrife plant, waved it in front of the bull and it calmed the bull. In general then, both the common and the generic name refers to a supposed power to soothe animals or "loose" them of their "strife". See below for more. The species name terrestris simply means 'growing on ground'. All the alternate common names are fairly self-explanatory, only the normal name - Swamp Candles - referring to the tall yellow raceme, does not use the word' loosestrife' in the name.
The author names for the plant classification are: First to classify in 1753, assigning the name Viscum terrestre, was '(L.)' which refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. His work was amended in 1888 by 'Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.' which refers to three botanists who collaborated on the classification of numerous species, particular those in and near New York as all three were members of the Torrey Botanical Club. They were Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859-1934) American botanist and taxonomist, co-founder of the New York Botanical Garden, signatory of the American Code of Botanical Nomenclature and co-author with Addison Brown of Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions in 1896. 'Stearns' is Emerson Ellick Sterns (1846-1926) American botanist, co-founder of the New York Botanical Garden. ‘Poggenb.’ is Justus Ferdinand Poggenburg I (1840-1893), botanist.
After the classification by Linnaeus, a number of botanists have published other names for the species until that of "B, S and P" has won out. Some of those now unaccepted names are: Lysimachia bulbifera, L. racemosa and L. stricta.
Comparisons: The flowers of Swamp Candles are quite similar to Whorled Loosestrife, Lysimachia quadrifolia, but there the flowers are in a whorl from the leaf axils, not on a raceme and the plant grows in upland habitat, not wet areas. Other examples of Lysimachia in the Garden are: Fringed Loosestrife, L. ciliata; Tufted Loosestrife, L. thyrsiflora; and Moneywort, L. nummularia. See also Prairie Loosestrife, L. quadriflora.
Above: The inflorescence is an unbranched terminal raceme. Note the flower in the front with the extra petal. Drawing from Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
Below: Lysimachia species may occasionally have extra petals as this flower shows at the 10 o'clock position - up to nine petals have been noted. The flower petals have a reddish base and are streaked with resin canals. The five stamens have filaments that are united at their bases and then surround the style. Note the very short narrow green sepals placed between the petals. These also have resin canal streaks.
Below: The flowers have long stalks and when the flower fades, the sepals close around the ovary leaving the fading petals on the extended style.
Below: 1st photo - The upper side of the leaf showing the gland dotting and the faint lateral veins. 2nd photo - the leaf underside also shows the dotting. Both surfaces are smooth.
Notes: Swamp Candles is not indigenous to the Garden but first brought in by Eloise Butler in 1912 from Washburn Park in Minneapolis. She did more plantings in 1913,'15, '22 and '27'. In late 1932 she acquired 6 additional roots from Barksdale, Wisconsin and heeled them in over winter. Then on April 8, 1933 she planted them on the north margin of the Mallard Pool. Two days later she was fatally stricken. Martha Crone planted more in 1933 that she obtained from near Anoka, MN and added more in 1948.
In Minnesota Swamp Candles is found in almost all counties in the NE quadrant of the state and down as far as the metro area, then just 3 counties along the Mississippi - Goodhue, Winona and Houston. In North America Swamp Candles is found from the Mississippi River states eastward except the deep South. It is also know in the northwest corner states of Wash. Oreg. and Idaho. In Canada it is found in British Columbia and all the lower provinces from Manitoba eastward.
Fourteen species of Lysimachia are of record in Minnesota per the U of M Herbarium as of 2018; several have not been collected in recent decades. Ten are still listed currently by the DNR on their plant surveys. Of those nine are native, one is introduced. The species of Lysimachia of record in the Garden, current and historical, are: Starflower, L. borealis; Fringed Loosestrife, Lysimachia ciliata; Moneywort, L. nummularia (the introduced species); Prairie Loosestrife, Lysimachia quadriflora; Whorled Loosestrife, L. quadrifolia; Swamp Candles, Lysimachia terrestis; Tufted Loosestrife, Lysimachia thyrsiflora; Garden Loosestrife, Lysimachia vulgaris.
Family Change: Some of the leading references have moved the species of Lysimachia from the Primrose (Primulaceae) family into another plant family - Myrsinaceae, following the lead of Flora of North America (FNA) (Ref. #W-7). The U of M Checklist of the Vascular Flora of Minnesota (Ref.#28C) follows this classification. FNA states: “M. Källersjö et al. (2000) and B. Ståhl and A. A. Anderberg (2004) removed the nonrosette terrestrial members from Primulaceae in the broad sense and placed them in the Myrsinaceae, which are further distinguished by leaves and calyx often dotted with yellow or dark streaks, flowers with relatively shorter corolla tubes, seeds immersed in placentae, and wood devoid of rays or with multiseriate rays only.”
Lore: As explained above, the common perception that a loosestrife plant has soothing powers over animals led people to tie a branch to the yolk of oxen, making them easier to handle. The plants are known to repel gnats and other irritating insects which maybe explains why the animals were easier to handle. Pliny the elder wrote that the odor of loosestrife would keep snakes away.
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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 1A, 32, W2, W3, W7 & W8 plus others as specifically applied. Distribution principally from W1, W2 and 28C. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.
Identification booklet for most of the flowering forbs and small flowering shrubs of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. Details Here.
©2016
Friends of the Wildflower Garden, Inc. Text and photos are by G. D. Bebeau unless otherwise credited. "www.friendsofeloisebutler.org"
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