American Water-willow

American Water-willow
Justicia americana

Alphabetically speaking, this is the first plant in the first family in the list of plants of Indiana - Acanthaceae - American Water-willow. So, as I started plowing my way through the plants, this one was first on my list and therefore I got quite excited when I came across it while canoeing along the edge of Crooked Lake on the border of Whitley and Noble counties in northeast Indiana.

It's a very common plant, just hard to get to and not very showy unless you get up close. From a distance, which is how you usually see them, it looks like a bunch of small white dots among the green vegetation. Up close, the beauty of this flower is apparent with the dark purple markings on the throat of the flower.



Grows in colonies along the shoreline of lakes and streams

Individual plants are hard to pick out within the dense colonies

Leaves are long, thin, untoothed and have practically no stem