hey guys this is josh here with trillium: wild edibles. i apologize for having to do this video on a picnic table at a park but, my camera just didn't want to focus. so i had to do this here. this plant that you see is called lobelia inflata. there are a couple ways you can tell this. one of the ways is because of these inflated seedpods. you can see these inflated seedpods here. the seedpods form at the base of the flowers after the flowers are pollenated. you can see them starting up here. on the stem of lobelia you will notice these little hairs.
it gets hairier and hairier as you go down the stem. i'll show you the base of the plant here. you can see all of these little bitty hairs. this is one of the identification factors of lobelia inflata. you can see the inflated seedpods. and what was left of the flower. when you see these seedpods they will feel inflated, as if there is air inside of them. this plant has alternating leaves, as you can see here. they alternate all the way down the stem. the underside of lobelia's leaves are hairy as well, whereas the top of them is not.
the leaves are lance shaped and they are toothed. you'll also notice these white specks on the leaves. the flowers are pale blue in this species. this plants flowers are in a tube shape. it has five petals, the top two lip upwards and they split. sorry about that. the three lower petals hang down here you can see the five petals, the two upper petals that lip upwards have a split. you can see they're fully split, all the way down to the corolla.
i hope you guys enjoyed this and i hope this helps you to identify lobelia.