Author

Thomas Wolf

Ecology

Fresh to brackish marshes, marshy shores, low woodlands along streams, ditches, and sloughs.

Family

VERBENACEAE (Vervain family)

Flowers

Hypogonous; sepals forming a 2-lobed calyx, green; Corolla 2-lipped; upper lip notched, lower 3 lobed, middle lobe the larger of the 3, pink, bluish, purplish or white; stamens 4 in 2 pairs, filaments short, epipetalous; pistil bicarpellate, ovary 2 locular, style 1, stigma obliquely capitate.  4-parted.

Fruit

At maturity forming 2 nutlets, plump, short-obovate, very nearly orbicular in outline, 1.5 mm long, splitting tardily.

Top

Inflorescences

Flowrs in head-like spikes; stalks of the spikes 4-10 cm long, from about as long as 2.5 times as long as the subtending leaf.  Bracts strongly folded-keeled proximally, abruptly flaring distally and broadly rounded but with a narrowed tip, pubescent exteriorly but the pubescence sometimes sloughed

Leaves

Opposite, lanceolate or lance-elliptic, rarely oblanceolate, 2-6 cm long and to 2.5 cm wide, tapering proximally to decurrent petioles to 10 mm long, or sessile; most leaves widest below the midpoint and tapering distally to acute apices, and marginally toothed distally from somewhat below the midpoint, teeth 7-11 on a side, rarely as few as 5. 

References

Godfrey, R. K. and J. Wooten.  1981. Aquatic and Wetland Plants of Southeastern United States:Dicotyledons. Pgs 588-589.

USDA, NRCS. 2006. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 4 December 2006). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Stems

Main stems creeping, rooting at the nodes, often radially spreading and elongate, with weakly ascending flowering branches to 6 dm long; stems  pubescent with appressed white hairs attached centrally and tapering to their extremities, the pubescence commonly sloughed leaving the stems glabrous.

Synonyms

Lippia lanceolata Michx.
Lippia lanceolata Michx. var. recognita Fern. & Grisc.
Phyla lanceolata (Michx.) Greene var. recognita (Fern. & Grisc.) Soper 
  

Top