FIGWORT FAMILY SCROPHULARIACEAE 
SLENDER GERARDIA 
Gerardia tenuifolia Vahl 
This is our commonest species of Gerardia and it grows in 
both moist and dry places, in woods that are not too dense or in 
open areas. It is found from Quebec to Georgia and west to 
western Ontario, Kansas and 
Texas. It is a smooth annual 
whose slender, much branched 
stem grows 6-24 inches high. 
The Slender Gerardia 
blooms from August to Octo- 
ber. The calyx is bell shaped 
and its 5 teeth are very short 
and pointed. The irregular 
corolla is light purple and some- 
what spotted, or rarely white, 
and slightly 2-lipped. There 
are 4 stamens, in pairs, which 
do not extend beyond the 
corolla tube. The filaments are 
somewhat hairy. The style is 
long and slender. The fruit is a 
spherical capsule which con- 
WA tains a very large number of 
somewhat angled seeds. 
The Purple Gerar- 
dia, Gerardia purpurea 
t L., is another species 
found in moist fields 
and meadows. The veg- 
etative parts of the 
plant are very much like those of the Slender Gerardia except that 
the leaves are a little longer. The blooming season is the same but the 
flowers of this species are larger and somewhat different. They are 
about 1 inch long and equally broad. The calyx teeth are triangular 
and nearly half as long as the tube. The corolla is purple, very much 
expanded above and covered outside with short hairs. 
The Auricled or Eared Gerardia, Gerardia auriculata Michx., is a 
rare annual, particularly of the northwest portion. Its slender, hairy 
stems are I-2 feet high and simple or branched above. The abundant 
sessile leaves are ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, and mostly rounded 
and 2-lobed at the base. Purple flowers are solitary in the upper 
axils and the 1-inch corollas are smooth within but exceedingly downy 
outside. Anthers of the short stamens are the smaller. 
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