''Kickxia elatine'' (commonly known as sharpleaf cancerwort and sharp-leaved fluellen) is a species of flowering plant in the family

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family, is a large, diverse family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as snapdragon and foxglove. It is unrelated to the banana-like fruit also called "plantain." In older cl ...

.USDA Plants Profile
/ref> It is native to Europe and Asia, but it is present on other continents as an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

, and sometimes a noxious weed.

Description

This is a small hairy herb with a trailing stem with many branches. It produces oval to arrowhead-shaped fuzzy leaves at wide intervals along the slender stem, and solitary snapdragon-like spurred flowers borne on long, straight

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence. Such inflorescences are described as ''pedicellate''. Description Pedicel refers to a structure connecting a single flower to its inflorescence. In the absenc ...

. Each flower is up to 1.5 centimeters long with a narrow, pointed spur extending from the back. The lobes of the mouth are yellow, white, and purple, and the whole flower is fuzzy to hairy, except for the flower stalk, which is more or less bare, in contrast to '' Kickxia spuria'' which has a hairy flower stalk. The fruit is a spherical capsule about 4 millimeters long.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery

elatine ''Elatine'' is one of only two genera in the plant family Elatinaceae, the waterwort family. It contains about 25 species of aquatic plants known generally as waterworts. These are annual or perennial plants found in wet areas worldwide. , Plant ...

Flora of Europe Flora of temperate Asia {{Plantaginaceae-stub