HOARY VERVAIN 



Verbena stticta Vent. 



June - August There are only a few wild verbenas in America as 



Upland pastures compared with the numbers of the family in the 



tropics where most of them are found. Of the ver- 

 benas east of the Eockies, it is the vervains which predominate as well- 

 established weeds. 



Of them all, perhaps the hoary vervain is most beautiful. Its flowers 

 are bright blue-purple, five-parted and tubular, much like the individual 

 flowers of the garden verbena, except that in the vervain they are arranged 

 in stiff spikes at the top of the plant. The flowers begin to bloom from 

 the lower end of the spikes and continue to bloom for numy days until 

 they have reached the to]). The leaves are thick, downy-hairy, toothed, 

 grey-gi'een, and the plants are tall, stiff, and well fitted to withstand 

 the hot sunshine of the upland pastures and dry, weedy liills wlicrc they 

 are most frecpiently found. 



The vervains in Illinois are varied. "White vei'vain (Verbena iirti- 

 cifolia) is a fine-hairy plant which often reaches a height of five feet 

 or more in moist places. The leaves are coarsely toothed, dark green, and 

 hairy. The flowers are tiny, white, and are produced on loose, spreading 

 spikes. In sandy ground is found the narrow-leaved vervain (Yerhena 

 mmplex). Blue ven'ain {Yerhena hastdia) is commou in wet places 

 with swamp milkweeds and tickseed sunflowers. The flowers are bright 

 purple and the plant is slender and much branched above. 



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