General:
Perennial herb from a usually branched stem-base; stems erect, solitary to several, simple or branching, greyish woolly-hairy, 40-100 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves lanceolate to oblanceolate, slenderly stalked, woolly-hairy, 5-10 cm long, 1-3 cm wide; stem leaves opposite, woolly-hairy; 5-10 pairs, often overlapping, gradually reduced upward and unstalked above; stipules lacking.

Flowers:
Inflorescence of several flowers in a loosely branched, open, leafy-bracted cluster, perfect; petals 5, rose-magenta, the stalks of the petals about equalling the calyces, narrow, without earlike lobes at the base, the blade 10-15 mm long, broadly egg-shaped, with 2 linear, sharp-pointed, 2-4 mm long appendages near the base of the blades; sepals 5, lanceolate, united, forming a tube about 15 mm long at flowering time, enlarged but not inflated in fruit, woolly-hairy, 10-nerved, the lobes slender, contorted.

Fruits:
Capsules elliptic, 12-16 mm long, 5-valved; seeds about 1 mm long, purplish-brown, evenly warty-pimply in concentric rows, the pimples bordered with minute teeth at the base.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Lychnis coronaria (L.) Desr.