MINT FAMILY LABIATAE 
SELF-HEAL. CARPENTERWEED 
Prunella vulgaris L. 
This genus name was often written Brunella, especially be- 
fore Linnaeus’ time, as it was said to be derived from the 
German Braune, a throat disease for which this plant was 
used as a remedy. 
This perennial is a most 
widely distributed Mint, some- 
times known as Heal All. It is 
common along roadsides and 
in fields, woods and waste 
places nearly throughout 
North America and in Europe 
and Asia as well. 
The plant is 2-24 inches 
high and very variable. The 
square stem, usually simple 
but sometimes considerably 
branched, is slender, some- 
times too weak to stand erect 
and in other cases strictly up- 
right. The ovate-oblong leaves 
are petioled, entire or toothed 
and hairy or smoothish. 
The blooming season is~ 
May to October. The small 
flowers, 3 in a cluster, are sessile in the axils of round bractlike 
floral leaves, the whole crowded in a short terminal spike or head. 
These spikes are sessile or short peduncled, very dense, and be- 
come 2-4 inches long in fruit. The bracts are tipped with a sharp 
rigid point. The tubular-bell-shaped calyx is deeply 2-lipped, 
usually purplish, about 1o-nerved and closed in fruit. The violet, 
flesh color or rarely white corolla is deeply 2-lipped also, and the 
upper lip is entire and arched, whereas the lower is 3-lobed and 
spreading. The lower lateral lobes are oblong and the middle one 
is rounded, concave and with small rounded teeth. Two unequal 
pairs of stamens are under the upper lip. The filaments are 2-cleft 
at the apex, the lower division bearing the anther. The ovary is 
seats 4-parted and the fruit consists of 4 smooth seedlike 
nutlets. 
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