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Cardinal flower is an unmistakable bright red (rarely white), orchid-like flower that prefers wet habitats. A mature plant is 2-3.5' tall; the stem is light green, round in section, and hairy. The stem terminates in a 1/2-1.5' long raceme of bright red flowers. At the base of the flower is a green calyx with five very long, narrow, usually-spreading lobes. The corolla is 1-1.5" long and 3/4-1" across; it is strikingly vertically-oriented. Rising above the two lateral corolla lobes and a third, three-lobed, central lip is a tubular structure that contains the fused filaments of the five stamens; the anther tubules are brush-like grayish structures at the downturned tip. The stigma runs up the center of this tube; it remain hidden for a time behind a pair of lips for a time, then the style elongates and emerges from the tip of the tube as a two-lobed stigma. The reproductive structures are precisely positioned to touch (and transfer pollen with) the head of a hummingbird drinking nectar from the flower. The fruit is a small, hemispherical, 1/4-1/2" capsule hidden in the remnants of the calyx. Nothing else in Illinois looks even vaguely like cardinal flowers.

Lobelia

Lobelia cardinalis

cardinal flower [Blooms: Jul-Sep]

Great blue lobelia's flower spike is 0.5-2' long, densely covered by blue-violet flowers with white stripes. individual flowers are about 1" across, the apex angled upwards, with a green, very hairy calyx with five long, narrow teeth and the bell-shaped corolla a tube that splits distally into in an upper and a lower lip, each with long white hairs on their outer surfaces. The lower lip consists of three lance-shaped, descending lobes with white patches near their bases; the upper lip has two lobes that flank on either side a cylindrical structure (five bluish stamen filaments fused with and surrounding the style) with a down-turned tip (the stigma) surrounded by brush-like anther "beards". The flower stalk and calyx are green and densely hairy. Like most lobelias, great blue lobelia contains toxic alkaloids that can produce serious symptoms; keep pets away. This species is unlikely to be confused with any other. If mystified by the flower structure, see http://iowaplants.com/flora/family/Campanulaceae/lobelia/l_siphilitica/Lobelia_siphilitica.html.

Lobelia

Lobelia siphilitica

great blue lobelia [Blooms: Aug-Oct]