Lysimachia nummularia

History of Spread

Lysimachia nummularia (Moneywort; Creeping-Jenny) is a popular garden plant which became widely naturalized in the Northeast in the late 1800s, and is now found north to the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes, south to LA, and west to the Pacific states and British Columbia. It has been introduced to the Great Lakes and Hudson River valley (Gray 1867; Fernald 1950; Gleason and Cronquist 1991; Mills et al. 1993; Mills et al. 1997; Natural Resources Conservation Service 2000).

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Lysimachia nummularia was reported as 'scarcely escaped' by Ward (1881) in Washington DC, and later found to be common in 'moist places, chiefly in alluvial soil (Hitchcock and Standley 1919). It was listed for Baltimore by Sollers (1888). It is now widespread in the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Brown and Brown 1984; Harvill et al. 1992). However, our only definite published record from tidal wetlands is that of Pasternack et al. 2000, who report it as a biomass dominant in wetlands of Otter Point Creek, Harford County MD, on upper Chesapeake Bay. It occurs in wetlands near the head of tide on the Patuxent River, MD, near Upper Marlboro (Fofonoff, personal observations).

History References- Brown and Brown 1984; Fernald 1950; Gleason and Cronquist 1991; Gray 1867; Harvill et al. 1992; Hitchcock and Standley 1919; Mills et al. 1993; Mills et al. 1997; Natural Resources Conservation Service 2000; Pasternack et al. 2000; Sollers 1888; Ward 1881

Invasion Comments