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LOOSESTRIFE
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Loosestrifes are typically moisture-loving, sometimes slender plants of several different genera. The name supposedly traces back to King Lysimachus of Thrace, in southeastern Europe, who is said to have stopped a maddened bull by waving a loosestrife plant in its face. (Loosestrife is an approximate English translation of lysis, to loosen or break away from, and mache, strife or conflict.) The plant may have been one of the 165 or more species now classified in the genus Lysimachia, in the primrose family, Primulaceae. These are mostly leafy-stemmed perennial herbs of wide distribution in temperate regions. L. vulgaris, the common or garden loosestrife, is native to Eurasia but now grows wild in North America. It is a coarse, bushy plant, growing to 1 m (3 ft) or more in height, and bears leafy clusters of dark-margined yellow flowers. The name loosestrife is also applied to several species of plants in the genus Lythrum and to its family, Lythraceae. The purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria, which bears a superficial resemblance to several species of Lysimachia, is native to Eurasia but has become naturalized in North America. It is an erect, somewhat downy perennial, growing to 1.8 m (6 ft) in height, with stalkless, narrow leaves and long spikes of red purple flowers. The water willow, Decodon verticillatus, of the same family, is sometimes called the swamp loosestrife. The 75 species of aquatic or marsh plants of the genus Ludwigia, in the evening primrose family, Onagraceae, are collectively called false loosestrifes.
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