LABIATAE MINT FAMILY 
AMERICAN GERMANDER. WOOD SAGE 
Teucrium canadense L. 
The American Germander is very common in the rich soil 
of fields and waysides from New England to Ontario and Minne- 
sota, south to Florida and Texas. It is an excellent honey plant 
but in some places be- 
comes a troublesome 
weed. 
It is perennial by an 
underground stem which 
if broken by cultivation 
grows into a number of 
new plants, though per- 
sistent cultivation de- 
stroys it. The square 
flowering stem grows I-2 
feet tall. The leaves are 
smooth or nearly so 
above but are densely 
covered with white hairs 
beneath. 
The plant blooms 
from June to September, 
the flowers being pro- 
duced in a terminal 
spike which may become 6-12 inches long by the time fruits are 
ripe. The bell-shaped calyxis somewhat unequally 5-toothed. The 
corolla, varying from purplish to pink or sometimes cream, is very 
irregularly 5-lobed. Four upper lobes are small and turned 
forward in such a way that there seems to be no upper lip; the 
fifth and lower lobe is much larger. The 4 stamens extend from 
the deep cleft between the 2 uppermost lobes of the corolla. 
The ovary, 4-lobed but not deeply 4-parted, develops into 4 
rather rough nutlets. 
Resembling the Wood Sage but on a larger scale and appearing 
less hoary because the bristly hairs stand out from the stem, is the 
Hairy Germander, Teucrium occidentale Gray. It is distributed in 
moist soil throughout Illinois and may grow 3 feet high. The axis 
of the bristly spike is sprinkled with protuberant glands. 
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