Wild Florida Photo
Nature Photography by Paul Rebmann
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Lobelia amoena
SOUTHERN LOBELIA
Synonym: Lobelia amoena var. amoena
Florida native
A rare wildflower of seepage slopes, stream banks and floodplain forests of the central panhandle and Walton County. The range extends though the southeast west into Alabama and north into Tennessee and Virginia.
The lavender zygomorphic flowers are two lipped. The upper lip is split longitudinally with the tips erect. The lower lip is three-lobed with a pale or white center. The flowers of many Lobelias are dichogamous, meaning that they go through sex phases to prevent self-polination. These flowers have stamens fused into a cylinder that matures first and pushes the pollen out to land on visiting insects. Then the flower enters the female phase with the style developing and extending out of the tube formed by the stamens and tipped with a two-lobed stigma. This sequence is illustrated here in the close-up photo of two flowers, where the upper flower is in the male phase, and the lower flower in the female.
Stem leaves are elliptic to ovate or oblanceolate, over 1 cm (0.4 in.) wide and usualy more than 3 cm (1.2 in.) long. The stem and leaves are glabrous, or with only a few inconspicuous trichomes. The caylx lobes are small, narrow and extending out away from the base of the corolla. In this, the amoena variety of this species, the margins are entire. The glandulifera variety has glands along the margins of the calyx lobes.
Lobelia amoena is a member of the Campanulaceae - Bellflower family.
Other species of this genus in the Wild Florida Photo database:
View Lobelia glandulosa - GLADE LOBELIA
View Lobelia amoena var. glandulifera - SOUTHERN LOBELIA
View Lobelia cardinalis - CARDINALFLOWER
View Lobelia paludosa - WHITE LOBELIA
View Lobelia brevifolia - SHORTLEAF LOBELIA
Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida
Bruce F. Hansen, Richard P. WunderlinComprehensive guide with dichotomous keys to all vascular plants in Florida. The authoritative source for identifying Florida plant species.
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Includes habitat and distribution information on each species, and an extensive glossary. There are no photographs or drawings.
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species
USDA Plant Profile for this species
Date record last modified:
Dec 05, 2009