Money plant (Lunaria annua)

Common Names: Annual honesty

Description: Introduced to North America as an ornamental.

Habit: Annual / Biennial, 2-3 1/2 ft tall, little branched.

Leaves: Up to 3 1/2 in long and 2 in across (excluding the petioles), lower leaves are oval-cordate or oval-deltoid, coarsely serrated or shallowly lobed, long hairy petioles, green or reddish purple in color; upper leaves are deltoid or ovate, smaller, coarsely serrated and sessile.

Stems: Green or reddish in color; scattered long white hairs.

Flowers: 3/4 in across, 4 pinkish purple petals with branching veins, 4 oblong sepals that are pink or purple and appressed together, occasionally petals are pink or white, fade with age, 1/2 in pedicel; fragrant.

Fruit and seeds: 1-1 1/2 in long seedpod, flattened, orbicular to oblong, slender stripe adjoining the pedicel, reticulated outer surface, few seeds, reniform-orbicular seeds with narrow papery margin.

Habitat: Native to Europe. Found in edges of woodlands, hedges, and flower gardens in semi-shaded areas.

Reproduction: By seed.

Similar species: Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis).

Monitoring and rapid response: Difficult to eradicate once established; hand-pulling and digging up root system may be effective.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from Illinoiswildflowers.info and the USDA PLANTS Database.

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).

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