Creeping Jenny

Creeping Jenny

Creeping Jenny - Lysimachia nummularia

Prostrate plant with four-edged stems creeping over the ground, reaching up to a half a metre in length but almost always shorter.

The undivided leaves are opposite, rounded or ovate, up to two centimetres wide and attached to the stem by a short stalk. The underside of the blade bears several brown glands.

The single flowers grow on long stalks from the axil of the median leaves. They have five yellow petals, also equipped with brown glands and can be up to two centimetres across. Flowering begins in May-June and ends in August.

The plant mostly multiplies by vegetative reproduction, thanks to the rooting nodes.

Lysimachia nummularia lives on the banks of water courses and in ditches, in wet meadows and clearings in hygrophilous woods.

It is widespread and fairly common in northern Italy reaching as far south as Molise in the peninsular, rare and localised in Campania but absent from the other southern regions and major islands.