Lobelia aquatica Cham.

Lobelia aquatica Cham. Linnaea 8: 211. 1833
Lobelia domingensis A. DC. in DC. Prodr. 7: 359. 1839. {Berlero ? in 1825; Geneva, photo!) LofceJid fr/'adeoia/a Vatke, Linnaea 38: 721. 1874. (A/ori(3, herb. Berlin!) Hot Lobelia bracteolala
A. DC. 1839. Dortmannia aquatica Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 972. 1891.
Plant decumbent, rooting at the lower nodes, the base submerged (?); stem unbranched, weak, slender, 1 mm. in diameter at base, green, smooth and glabrous, 30-50 cm. long; cauline leaves few-13, spreading, membranous, smooth and glabrous, shallovvly and regularly crenatedentate, the teeth callose-tipped; lower leaves often subentire, the margins sinuate with inconspicuous callose teeth, the blades about 1 cm. wide by 2 cm. long, ovate to oblong, the tips cuneate-acute, the bases abruptly rounded, sessile, or subpetiolate ; leaves gradually decreasing in size upward, the upper ones relatively narrower, lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, sessile, narrowly acute at tip; raceme 8-25 cm. long, loosely 8-15-flowered, scarcely secund, the lowest flowers in the a.ils of the scarcely reduced upper leaves; pedicels spreading-ascending, filiform, 17-33 mm. long in fruit, smooth, abruptly curved at tip so that the mature capsule is bent away from the inflorescence axis; bracteoles of the pedicel 2, green, at the very base, oblonglinear, 1-2 mm. long; lower flower-bracts sometimes 2 cm. long, leafy, the upper smaller, mostly about 2.5-10 mm. long; flower 7 (?) mm. long, including hypanthium; corolla blue (?), with white markings, the tube about 1.7 mm. long, cleft to base, but not otherwise fenestrate, the lobes of the upper Up about 2 mm. long, those of the lower lip between 1.5 and 2 mm. long; filament-tube 3.0 nmi. long, the filaments glabrous, imited in the distal third only; P.RT 1, 1942] CAMPANULACEAE (LOBELIOIDEAE) 45
anther-tube 1.0 mm. long, all five anthers shortly white-tufted at tip; style sharply declined just above the summit of the ovary (bent away from the dorsal side of the corolla) and then recurved so that it enters the anther-tube almost from the usual position; hypanthium in anthesis short-campanulate, smooth, becoming ellipsoid or subglobose in fruit, slightly higher than broad, about 3.0 mm. across; capsule about three-fourths inferior; calyx-lobes linearsubulate, smooth, entire, 3.5-4.5 mm. long; seeds shining, smooth, trigonous, eUipsoid, about 0.5 mm. long.
Type localitv; Brazil. Selloiv.
Distribution: Hispaniola; Colombia and Venezuela to southeastern Brazil.