Purpleleaf Willowweed (Epilobium coloratum)
- Family: Evening Primrose (Onagraceae)
- Flowering: June-October.
- Field Marks: This willowweed is distinguished by its uncleft stigmas, its leaves with stalks, and the cinnamon-brown hairs attached to its seeds.
- Habitat: Wet meadows, along streams, in wet ditches.
- Habit: Perennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Erect, branched, hairy at least in the upper half, up to 3 feet tall.
- Leaves: Opposite or a few upper ones sometimes alternate, simple, lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, pointed at the tip, rounded or tapering to the base, shallowly toothed, smooth or hairy, up to 3 1/2 inches long, up to 2/3 inch broad; leaf stalk very short.
- Flowers: Several to numerous, borne in panicles, up to 3/4 inch long.
- Sepals: 4, united below, ovate, hairy, up to 1/6 inch long.
- Petals: 4, free from each other, pink or white, up to 1/6 inch long.
- Stamens: 8.
- Pistils: 1; ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Capsules linear, up to 2 inches long, about 1/20 inch wide, hairy, brown, on stalks up to 1/2 inch long; seeds numerous, with a tuft of cinnamon-brown hairs at the tip.
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