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2. VERBENA Tourn. (VERVAIN.) 
Herbs, with bracted flowers sessile in single or often panicled spikes, 
tubular 5-toothed calyx, tubular (often curved) salverform corolla with 
somewhat unequally 5-cleft border, 4 perfect and included stamens 
(upper pair occasionally withoutanthers) with ovate anthers and nearly 
parallel cells, mostly 2-lobed stigma with anterior lobe larger and pos- 
terior smooth and sterile, and fruit separating into 4 seed-like nutlets. 
* Anithers not appendaged: flowers small, in narrow spikes. 
+ Spikes filiform, with flowers or at least fruits scattered, naked, the inconspicuous bracts 
mostly shorter than the calyx. 
1. V. officinalis L. Annual, glabrous or nearly so, loosely branched, 3 to 9 dm. 
high: leaves pinnatifid or 3-cleft, oblong-lanceolate, sessile, smooth above, the lobes 
cut and toothed: spikes panicled: flowers purplish, very small.—Road sides and old 
fields. (Native from Europe.) 
2. V. xutha Lehm. Stouter and taller, hirsute-pubescent: leaves more or less 
canescent, incisely pinnatifid or laciniate, or some of the lower 3-parted, the lobes 
coarsely toothed: flowers purple or blue, more crowded in the strict spikes and 
larger: bracts about equaling the calyx.—Extending from Louisiana through Texas 
to southern California and Mexico. 
3. V. urticeefolia L. Perennial, from minutely pubescent to almost glabrous, 
rather tall, 9 to 15 dm. high: leaves oval or oblong-ovate, acute, coarsely serrate, 
petioled: spikes at length much elongated, loosely panicled: flowers very small, 
white.—Waste or open grounds extending from the Atlantic region through Texas 
to tropical America. 
+ + Spikes thicker or densely flowered: fruits crowded, mostly overlapping each other: 
bracts inconspicuous, not exceding the flowers: perennial, 
4, V. hastata L. Tall, 12 to 18 dm. high: leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 
taper-pointed, cut-serrate, petioled, the lower often lobed and sometimes halberd- 
shaped at base: spikes linear, erect, coryimbed or panicled: flowers blue.—Extend- 
ing from the Atlantic region through Texas to New Mexico and California. 
5, V. stricta Vent. Downy with soft whitish hairs, erect, simple or branched, 3 
to6dm. high: leaves sessile, obovate or oblong, serrate: spikes thick, somewhat 
clustered, hairy: flowers rather large, purple.—Extending from northern barrens 
and prairies to Texas and New Mexico, 
+ + + Spikes thick, sessile and leafy-bracted: annual. 
6. V. bracteosa Michx. Widely spreading or procumbent, hairy: leaves wedge- 
lanceolate, cut-pinnatifid or 3-cleft, short-petioled: spikes single, remotely flowered : 
bracts large, the lower pinnatilid, longer than the small purple flowers.—Prairies 
and open waste grounds. In western Texas occurs var. BREVIBRACTEATA Gray, with 
dense spikes, most of the bracts little longer than the flowers, the uppermost barely 
equaling them, and in fruit all ascending or appressed. 
7. V. canescens HBK Ascending or erect, canescent-hirsute: leaves oblong- 
lanceolate and wedge-obovate, contracted into amargined base, rigid, sharply toothed, 
incised or some of them pinnatifid: spikes solitary, filiform, mostly loosely flow- 
ered: bracts subulate, the lower almost filiform, and more or less exceeding the 
bluish flowers; the uppermost ovate-lanceolate and only equaling them.—Dry open 
grounds, southern and western Texas. 
* * Anthers of the longer stamens glandular-tipped: flowers showy, from depressed-capi- 
tate becoming spicate. 
+ Gland of anthers small and short, sometimes inconspicuous, on the middle of the back. 
8. V. ciliata Benth. Low or depressed, 7.5 to 25 cm. high, hirsute-pubescent or 
hispid, diffusely spreading: leaves once or twice 3-cleft or parted and variously 
