398 



LABIATAE 



.■ti"? 



European weed naturalized in waste places, 10 to 4700 feet : throughout Cali- 

 fornia. Maj'-Sept. 



Immigration note. — The legend runs that the Franciscan friars, coming from Mexico into 

 California in the latter part of the eighteenth century on their task of founding a chain of mis- 

 sions, brought with them, amongst other European garden plants, the medicinal herb, Marrubium 

 vulgare. It is not improbable ; and there is tlie fact of a few early day records. In the Botany 

 of Beeehey's Voyage (1838), this species is listed in the California collection made by Douglas in 

 1831. Bigelow gathered it at Mokelumne Hill, Amador Co., in 1854 (Pac. R. Rep. 4 ;123). Brewer 

 collected it near Mt. Diablo in 1861 (no. S37). It is included in Bolander's Catalogue of Plants 

 growing in the vicinity of San Francisco (22, — 1870). After which time herbarium records be- 

 come frequent: betw. Alturas and Likely, Modoe Co., Jepson in 1918; Salt Creek settlements, w. 

 Tehama Co., Jepson in 1899; Knecland Prairie, Humboldt Co., Tracy 3878 in 1912; Grand Isl., 

 lower Sacramento River in 1891 (Erythea 1:243) ; Clements, San Joaquin Co., Jepson in 1902; 

 Alameda, Jepso7i 14,890 in 1894; Berryessa, Santa Clara Co., Davy in 1900; betw. Lemon Cove and 



Three Rivers, Jepson in 1900; Canada del Capitan, 

 Santa Barbara Co., Jepson 11,913 in 1927 ; Santa Cata- 

 lina Isl., in 1898 (Erythea, 7:98) ; Los Angeles, c. 1893 

 (Erythea, 1:98); Riverside, Jepson in 1901; Santa 

 Ana, Alice King in 1908 ; San Diego, T. Brandegee in 

 1894. During the last thirty years it has become ex- 

 tremely common in waste lauds in or about old towns in 

 the Great Valley, Sierra Nevada foothills and Coast 

 Ranges, sometimes forming dense thickets of a quarter 

 of an acre or so, or belts of it may extend for miles as 

 at Bellota in San Joaquin County. It favors a wide 

 variety of habitats, such as dry canon bottoms, rich 

 valley flats, arid rocky hills, waterless mesas, moist river 

 "bottoms" and valley marshes; and it is evergreen with 

 us. In certain portions of the eastern United States 

 Marrubium vulgare and Nepeta cataria, both intro- 

 duced medicinal weeds, are often found associated. 

 This is seldom or never true in California. 



Refs. — Marrubium vulgare L., Sp. PI. 583 (1753), 

 tj-pe loe. European; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 455 

 (1901), ed. 2, 355 (1911), Man. 865 (1925). 



6. AGASTACHE Clayt. 



Tall perennial lierbs. Leaves ovate, serrate, 

 petioled. Flowers violet-purple or whitish, the 

 cymes crowded in a terminal spike. Calyx 

 tubnlar-eampanulate, rather oblique, almost 

 equally 5-toothed. Upper lip of corolla 2-lobed, 

 nearly erect; lower lip spreading, its middle 

 lobe crenate. Stamens 4, exserted, the anthers 



not approximate in pairs. — Species about 5, North America. (Greek agan, mucli, 



and stachus, a corn ear, in allusion to the numerous spikes.) 



1. A. urticifolia Ktze. (Fig. 426.) Stems several to many from the base, 

 erect, simple or with few brandies above, 2^ /o to 5 feet high ; herbage glabrous or 

 sometimes minutely puberulent; leaf-blades triangular-ovate, truncate to subcor- 

 date at base, serrate, 11/2 to 4 inches long; petioles V'2 to li/> inches long, or the 

 uppermost % inch long; calyx-teeth subulate to lanceolate, pinkish or whitish; 

 corolla dull white or light violet-purple, 4 to 6 lines long, its lobes sliglitly hairy but 

 the throat glabrous ; lateral lobes of lower lip short, acute, the middle lobe short- 

 fan-shaped, a little cupped, erosulate; filaments glabrous; style included. 



Moist often sandy soil of meadows, ravines or valley floors, mostly in the moun- 

 tains: San Bernardino Mts., 4000 to 5000 feet; San Luis Obispo Co., 900 to 1500 

 feet ; North Coast Ranges. 200 to 6000 feet, from Napa and Sonoma Cos. to Siskiyou 

 Co. ; Sierra Nevada, 2500 to 8700 feet, from Tulare Co. to Modoc Co. East to Ari- 

 zona and Nevada, north to Idaho and Washington. June-Julv. 



Fig. 426. Agastache urticifolia 

 Ktze. a, fl. stem, X Va ; b, fl., X 2; 

 c, nutlet, dorsal view, X 10 ; d, nutlet, 

 ventral view, X 10. 



