Jussiaea leptocarpa Nutt. Herb usually about 1 m tall or shrub to 2.5 m, rooting at lower nodes when in water; stems angulate-winged from below petiole, sparsely white-pilose and puberulent. Blades sessile or on petioles to 10 mm long, lanceolate, usually acute or acuminate at apex, gradually tapered to base, 4-8 (14) cm long, 0.7-2.8 cm wide, usually puberulent on both surfaces, often with longer trichomes on veins. Flowers solitary in axils, 5- or 6-parted; pedicels to ca 2 cm long; sepals lanceolate, acuminate, 5-8 mm long; petals yellow, obovate, rounded at apex, usually 8-10 mm long (rarely smaller); stamens 10 or 12, in 2 series, the shorter series opposite petals, the longer ones alternate, about as high as stigma; anthers extrorse; style stout, 2-4 mm long; stigma capitate (becoming fleshy); nectaries in U-shaped depressions around base of outer filaments, protected by a close series of arching trichomes from either side; nectar copious. Capsules subcylindrical, striate, 2.5-4.5 cm long, to 3 mm thick, long-pubescent; seeds uniseriate in each locule, ca 1 mm long, surrounded by the horseshoe-shaped corky endocarp. Croat 11299, 13972. Frequent in swampy or moist areas on the shore; often a component of floating masses of vegetation. Flowers and fruits from January to July. Throughout the tropics and subtropics of the New World. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone and Bocas del Toro, from tropical dry forest in Coclé, and from premontane wet forest in Chiriqui.