ACANTHUS FAMILY ACANTHACEAE 
SMOOTH RUELLIA 
Ruellia strepens L. 
Unlike the Water Willow, the Smooth Ruellia grows in dry 
places and rich soil in woods, along roadsides or other open 
places from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and south to Florida and 
Texas. It is a nearly smooth 
perennial herb. The slender 
stem is 4-sided, 1-4 feet 
high and usually branched. 
The leaves are 3-6 inches 
long and petioled. 
Either solitary flowers or 
several together in the axils 
of leaves are produced from — 
June to September. Some- — 
times some of the flowers 
are very small and do not 
open but are self-pollinated 
in the bud and produceseeds. 
The calyx of the ordinary 
flower is $-parted; the co- 
rolla is blue and slightly ir- 
regular. Four stamens are 
attached to the corolla tube. © 
The capsule is club shaped 
and contains 6-20 seeds 
with mucilaginous coats. 
The Hairy Ruellia, Ruellia 
ciliosa Pursh, is covered with — 
soft whitish hairs. The oval or oblong leaves are nearly sessile and 
smaller than in the smooth species. The corolla tube is fully twice the — 
length of the calyx lobes and the throat is rather short. Sometimes — 
the 2 species are cross-pollinated and hybrids result. 
The record for this genus in Illinois is completed by the Stalked 
Ruellia, Ruellia pedunculata Torr., which occurs in dry rocky hills 
of the extreme south. It grows up to 2% feet, is much branched and ~ 
bearing generally long-pointed, ovate or ovate-lanceolate leaves. The 
axillary inflorescence of 1-3 flowers is supported by a long slender 
peduncle at whose summit are 2 leaflike bracts subtending the 1 or 
more similarly bracted pedicels. 
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