| Author | L. | |
| Distribution | Mostly in the Mountains and Piedmont; rare in the Coastal Plain (Cape Fear River in Bladen County; roadside ditch in Camden County). First collected in Iredell County in 1881 by M.E. Hyams ("escaped cult.").
Native of Europe; in N.A. -- N.S. to Ont., MN, and NE, south to GA, LA, OK. Also CO, MT, and B.C. to CA. | |
| Abundance | Fairly common to locally common in the Piedmont and Mountains; rare in the Coastal Plain except in a few brownwater river floodplains; absent from the Sandhills proper. | |
| Habitat | Floodplain forests and alluvial woods, shores of rivers, streams, and impoundments. As it grows well into the shade of bottomland forests, it can be a noxious pest, impacting low-growing native herbs. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting May-August. | |
| Identification | Moneywort is a prostrate, creeping plant with opposite, round (or even wider than long), shiny leaves (the size of a thumbnail) and showy yellow flowers. Japanese Loosestrife (L. japonica) is quite similar but has broadly ovate leaves and much smaller flowers. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Weakley (2020) has split out Steironema from Lysimachia based on a 2018 paper using molecular research; and in so doing has gone back to "old" taxonomy. In Lysimachia there are no staminodes and the leaves are punctate with elongate markings (vs. staminodes present and punctae absent in Steironema). | |
| Other Common Name(s) | Creeping Jenny | |
| State Rank | SE | |
| Global Rank | GNR | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACW link |
| USACE-emp | FACW link |
