FIGWORT FAMILY SCROPHULARIACEAE 
HEDGE HYSSOP 
Gratiola virginiana L. 
The Hedge Hyssop is an annual in wet or muddy open places 
from Quebec to British Columbia and south to Florida, Texas 
and California. It often comes up in great abundance along the 
border of a wet field and it 
may be found in bloom any 
time from May to October. 
The plant grows 3-12 
inches erect and becomes 
widely branched. The stem 
is usually glandular sticky, at 
least near the top, and bears 
sessile leaves which are nar- 
rowed at both ends, slightly 
toothed and smooth or nearly 
so. 
The flowers are axillary 
and the peduncles are shorter, 
or at least not longer, than 
the leaves. At the end of the 
peduncle are 2 bracts as long 
as the calyx. The calyx is 
about half as long as the 
corolla and deeply 5-parted, 
the segments being narrow 
and slightly unequal. The 
corolla is irregular, with a 
cylindrical yellowish tube and a short white, slightly 2-lipped 
limb. There are only 2 perfect stamens, with threadlike filaments, 
but sometimes rudiments of 2 others occur. The style also is 
threadlike and the stigma is slightly 2-lobed. The fruit is a capsule 
containing numerous seeds marked by a network of lines. 
Much less commonly will be found the Round-fruited Hedge 
Hyssop, Gratiola sphaerocarpa Ell., which flowers in wet places from 
April to June. The stems are stout, thickened at the base and bearing 
numerous opposite leaves which are sessile, oblong-oval, toothed 
and strongly 3-veined. The yellowish white flowers are a trifle more 
than one-half inch long and have no sterile filaments. The globular 
capsule is one-quarter inch in diameter. 
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