Scientific name: Epilobium hirsutum L.
Common name: Great Willowherb
Description
Habit: A soft-hairy perennial, to 1.5 m high.
Stems: Erect, stout and soft-hairy, with rhizomes.
Leaves: Opposite, without stipules, stalkless, clasping the stem, soft hairy, undivided, oblong-lanceolate and toothed.
Flowers: Bright pink, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, 20 mm across, in loose terminal racemes; calyx 4-lobed; petals 4, often notched; stamens 8; stigma 4-lobed, ovary inferior, very long and narrow.
Fruits: A 4-celled linear capsule, seeds small, each with a tuft of cotton-like hairs.
Habitat: Ditches, marshes, roadsides, damp waste ground.Distribution: Widely but irregularly distributed, mostly on limestone near the sea.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No