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Lobelia dortmanna
Also called Water Lobelia, Dortmann's Cardinal Flower, Dortmann's Lobelia, Water Gladiole
Dortmann's cardinalflower (Lobelia dortmanna) is a submerged-rooted aquatic perennial from clear, low-nutrient lakes, with a rosette of cylindrical leaves and flower spikes that rise above the water. Keep it in cold, clean, nutrient-poor water with plenty of light.
Lobelia dortmanna, Dortmann's cardinalflower or water lobelia, is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae. This stoloniferous herbaceous perennial aquatic plant with basal leaf-rosettes and flower stalks grows to 0.7–2 m (2.3–6.6 ft) tall. The flowers are 1–2 cm long, with a five-lobed white to pale pink or pale blue corolla, produced in groups of one to ten on an erect raceme held above the water surface. The fruit is a capsule 5–10 mm long and 3–5 mm wide, containing numerous small seeds.
The leaves are almost cylindrical, blunt, 2.5–7.5 cm long and evergreen. They have no functional stomata. It is one of several unrelated species of plants from low nutrient lakes known as isoetids, owing to their superficial similarity to Isoetes.
Lobelia dortmanna is native to cool temperate regions of northern Europe (from the British Isles and northwest France to northwest Russia) and northern North America (both coasts; Newfoundland south to New Jersey and west to the Great Lakes in the east, and British Columbia south to Oregon in the west). It reaches its northern limit in northern Norway, north of the Arctic circle.
Cardinalflower · Chinese lobelia · Edging lobelia · Indian-tobacco · Sierra Madre lobelia · Lobelia oligophylla · Lobelia polyphylla · Devil's Tobacco · Lobelias
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Lobelia dortmanna by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
