FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Note flowers on long stalks as well as a square-sided stem with no wings. Leaves are sessile without petioles.
Description: Tall, branching, leafy herb with a thin rhizome, to 1.5 m.
Leaves: Mimulus ringens has leaves that attach directly to the stem without petioles and has no wings on its square-sided stems.
Flowers/Fruit: Monkey-flowers have lavender tubular flowers. Mimulus ringens has flowers on long stalks. It blooms June to September, fruiting soon after flowering. Fruit are oval-shaped, brown, and splitting when dry.
Habit and Range: Mimulus ringens (Allegheny monkey-flower) occurs chiefly in the Mountains and Piedmont, along marsh edges, pond margins, ditches, wet meadows, and bogs.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Mimulus ringens (Allegheny monkey-flower is similar to Mimulus alatus (sharpwing monkey-flower) but the two species seldom grow together in the same wetland or ditch. Noting leaf arrangement and length of flower stalks helps distinguish the two species from each other. Mimulus alatus has flowers on short stalks and leaves with petioles. Mimulus ringens has flowers on long stalks and leaves without petioles.
Click here to view Mimulus alatus.
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