Plants stoloniferous, each stolon ending in a shallow tuber from which the solitary stem arises the next year; herbage inconspicuously hairy or glabrous; lvs lanceolate or oblong, 2-6 cm, acute or short-acuminate, with a few low teeth, the proximal margins straight or slightly convex, rarely slightly concave; cal-lobes 5; cor 5-lobed, the lobes ±spreading; stamens exsert; nutlets surpassing the cal, each 1.1-1.8 mm, three-fourths as wide, the tubercles commonly 3 and restricted to the peripheral margin, the interior angle distinctly shorter than the outer ones and not ending in a tubercle, the set of 4 nutlets therefore with a depressed center; 2n=22. Nf. and e. Que. to Alas., s. to N.C., Ark., and Calif. (L. virginicus var. pauciflorus)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.