Foldear Lobelia

Lobelia flaccidifolia Small, Bull. Torrey Club 24: 338. 1897
/^ixiia /«</OTuiana ACray, I'r<K. Am. Aca^l. 12: 60. 1876. (y. //a/f, Cray!) Not /*frWio /uJo-
ticiana W<jo<l. 1861. Lobelia llalei Small. Fl. SE. U. S. 1 145. 1903. (Itased on /.. ludoviciana A. Gray.) Uorlmannia ludijiiciana Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 972. 1891. Stem slender, erect, simple or with several filiform branches each bearing a few flowers, 30-100 cm. high, glabrous or sparsely hirsute, green, or reddish below; leaves cauline, thin, few-20, glabrous, subentire or inconspicuously crenate or serrate, the blades 0.5-1.5 cm. wide by 5-11 cm. long, 5-8 (12) times as long as wide, lanceolate or long-oblong, short-acute at the tip, mostly rather abruptly narrowed at base, the lower short-petiolate, oblanceolate; floral bracts definitely smaller than the leaves, the larger leaves well below the inflorescence; inflorescence a loose raceme, sometimes plainly secund, few-30 cm. long, bearing 3-30 flowers; pedicels rough, slender, curved, 4-1 1 mm. long in fruit, each with a pair of conspicuous green smooth or ciliate bracteoles near the middle or below; flower-bracts linear, glabrous, denticulate, about equaling the pedicels; flower 14-22 mm. long (averaging 15-16 mm.), including h>'panthium; corolla blue, pubescent without or glabrous, the lower lip somewhat pubescent within at the base, with two tubercles, the tube 6.5-8.5 mm. long, entire except for the dorsal fissure, or fenestrate, the lobes of the lower lip oblong or narrow-ovate, nearly as long as the tube, the two upper lobes lanceolate, erect; filament-tube 5-8 mm. long, the filaments pubescent near base, connate more than half their length; anther-tube 2-3 mm. long, bluish-gray, the two smaller anthers tufted at the tips, the three larger pubescent on the backs; hj-panthium in anthesis short-campanulate, somewhat rough-puberulent, becoming hemispheric in fruit, strongly ribbed; capsule more than half inferior, longer than wide, 4—6 mm. in diameter; calyx-lobes narrowly sagittate, acute or attenuate, glabrous or ciliate, usually glandulartoothed, 3-5 (7) mm. long; auricles reflexed, round, small, but conspicuous, I mm. long or less; seeds ovoid to linear-oblong, light-brown, 0.4-0.6 mm. long.
Type locawty; Ochlockonee River swamp near Thomasville, Thomas County, Georgia, Small (NY I).
Distrtbution: Coastal Plain, Georgia to eastern Texas.