Common name: Creeping Jenny, Moneywort, Creeping Loosestrife, Herb Twopence, Twopenny Grass, Creeping Penny, Wandering Jenny, Creeping Charlie
Lysimachia nummularia L. APNI* Description: Creeping, stoloniferous perennial herb; stems prostrate, rooting at nodes, to 40 cm or more long, grooved, narrowly winged (wings decurrent along stem), glabrous, with scattered minute reddish glandular dots and short streaks.
Leaves opposite; lamina (ovate–) broadly ovate to orbiculate, with round or ± cordate base, entire, mostly 10–25 mm long and (5–) 10–26 mm wide (sometimes wider than long), glabrous, minutely dotted with reddish or orange-brown sessile glands; petiole (1–) 2–6 mm long, glabrous, narrowly winged, shallowly grooved adaxially.
Flowers simple, solitary in leaf axils, axillary (although solitary in leaf axils they often appear as pairs from the stem nodes where the opposite leaves meet); pedicel 5–35 mm long, glabrous, without a basal bract; sepals 5(6), virtually free, green, 4–10 mm long, 3–7 mm wide, ovate with acute (to acuminate) apex, cordate base, scattered minute sessile glands; petals 5(6), shortly fused (united at base forming short corolla tube), exceeding the sepals, ovate, c. 10–15 mm long, yellow, glandularspotted, margin minutely glandular puberulent, apex acute or obtuse/rounded; stamens 5(6); filaments often minutely glandular puberulent.
Capsule globose or subglobose, 2–3(–4) mm diam., much shorter than persistent calyx, longitudinally dehiscing from apex by 5 valves, many-seeded.
Flowering: mostly in summer; November–February (–April).
Distribution and occurrence: native to Eurasia; naturalised in North America, New Zealand and south-eastern Australia, as well as sometimes escaping from cultivation as a weed in Europe. In Australia Lysimachia nummularia is naturalised in north-east Tasmania, central-south Victoria, and now known from the Apsley River in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. Recorded on basalt, growing from a wet river bed among Schoenoplectus sp. and Bulboschoenus sp., with Potamogeton australiensis and Azolla sp. occupying deeper pools.
NSW subdivisions: *NT
Other Australian states: *Vic. *Tas.
First recorded in New South Wales in November 2015 from the Apsley River in the Northern Tablelands. Potential to become a problem weed (see Kodela & Jobson 2016). Formerly in Myrsinaceae.
Text by P.G. Kodela & R.W. Jobson, September 2016
Taxon concept: P.G. Kodela & R.W. Jobson, Lysimachia nummularia (Primulaceae) naturalised in New South Wales, Telopea 19: 153-157 (2016)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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