Erect or creeping herbs, rarely subshrubs, glabrous or covered with multicellular hairs, often with glandular dots. Leaves alternate, opposite or whorled, entire. Flowers solitary and axillary or arranged in terminal or axillary racemes or umbels; racemes often shortened to subcapitate or sometimes compounded into panicles; calyx 5-parted, rarely 6-9-parted, persistent; corolla white or yellow, sparsely pale red or pale purplish red, rotate or campanulate, 5-parted, sparsely 6-9-parted, lobes rotate in buds; stamens as many as and opposite corolla lobes, filaments separated or basally Stamens as many as opposite corolla lobes, filaments separate or basally connate into a tube, ± adnate to corolla; anthers basifixed or mesifixed, apical pores dehiscent or longitudinally cleft; pollen grains 3-grooved, orbicular to oblong, surfaces nearly smooth or with reticulate ornamentation; ovary globose, styles filiform or rod-shaped, stigmas obtuse. Capsule ovoid or globose, usually 5-valved; seeds angular or winged.
The type species of this genus: Lysimachia vulgaris L.
Lysimachia L. is a genus of pearlwort, family Primulaceae, with about 180 species, distributed in temperate and subtropical regions, and there are 120 species in China, all of which are produced throughout the country but are most prevalent in the southwestern part of the country, where the spirit herb L. foenumgraecum Hance is a famous aromatic plant. For a famous aromatic plants; L. christinae Hance treatment of kidney stones effective, there are some species are also commonly used in folk medicine. Herbs perennial; leaves alternate, opposite, or whorled, entire, often with glandular dots; flowers solitary in leaf axils or arranged in racemes, umbels, panicles, or in capitate bouquets; calyx 5(-6)-lobed; corolla whorled or campanulate, 5(-6)-lobed; stamens 5(-6), inserted on corolla tube; ovary 1-loculed, subglobose, with ovules mostly borne on a terete central placenta; capsule ovoid or globose. (See Handel-Mazzetti's "A Revision of the Chinese Species of Lysimachia", in Not. Roy. 122, 1928.)