Azores yellow pimpernel

Lysimachia azorica

Family · Primulaceae · Harmless

The creeping little plant with yellow star flowers that carpets the damp floor of Azorean laurisilva, among ferns and moss, where almost no sun reaches.

Where it grows

Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Uplands

Also known as

Azorean loosestrife

In flower

How to tell it

A creeping, delicate plant with slender rooting stems. Opposite, oval, small leaves with translucent dots against the light. Yellow five-petalled flowers opening in a star, a centimetre across, solitary on a slender stalk from the axil. Range: endemic to the Azores.

What it is confused with

No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.

What it is for

No use. It indicates well-preserved humid laurisilva, and is among the first plants to vanish when the forest is opened or invaded.

Sources

Flora-On