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Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia)

Moneywort Common Names: Creeping jenny, creeping yellow loosestrife

Description: Rounded leaves and creeping habitat distinctive throughout growing season.

Habit: Herbaceous creeping perennial growing to 60 cm (1.3 ft), forms dense low mats ranging from 5-10 cm (2 in) in height.

Leaves: Opposite, rounded, resemble small coins, simple, 0.25-1.5 in long, occur on short petioles, upper surfaces have widely scattered, glandular, red to black dots.

Stems: Stalk about the same length as the leaves.

Flowers: Yellow in color and dotted with dark red; 5 petals (occasionally 6), 3/4-1 in wide, stalk about the same length as the leaves, solitary from the leaf axils; blooms June through August.

Fruit and seeds: Small capsule, 1 celled, spherical, splits vertically. Seeds very tiny, 0.5 mg, elliptic and 1 mm long. Capsule may contain 1-5 seeds.

Habitat: Native to Europe and western Asia. Found in open wetlands, floodplain forests, wet meadows, and along lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

Reproduction: Vegetatively by stems, unknown mechanism for dispersing over longer distances; fragments may be dispersed by water.

Similar species: Common gypsyweed (Veronica officinalis); Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea); Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) are all similar in their creeping nature, not when flowering.

Monitoring and rapid response: Hand-pulling when practical, making sure to remove all stem and root fragments; prolonged submergence; establishment of native grasses to shade it out; No chemical herbicides have been found effective.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the Michigan Natural Features Inventor and the Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).


Common Name:

Moneywort

Scientific Name:

Lysimachia nummularia

Family:

Primulaceae
(Primrose)

Duration:

Perennial

Habit:

Herbs

USDA Symbol:

LYNU