VERBENA AUBLETIA. 



AUBLET'S VERBENA. 



NATURAL ORDER, VKRBKXACE.K. 



Verbena Aubletia, Linnaeus — Hairy; stem creeping at the base, ascending, forking; leaves 

 ovate-oblong, three-cleft, with the lobes toothed, narrowed into a slender petiole; the 

 lower oncs^smaller, rounded, toothed ; spikes terminal and in the forks of the stem, long- 

 pedunclcd, closely flowered; calyx long, slender, the unequal teeth subulate; corolla 

 showy, purple; stem six to twelve inches high; corolla one half inch long. (Chapman's 

 Flora pfthe Southern United States. See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern 

 United States, and Wood's Class-Book of Botany.) 



INN^US tells us that "Verbena is a Latin name of 

 uncertain derivation," and Dr. Gray, in his " Manual," 

 says it is " the Latin name for any sacred herb ; derivation ob- 

 scure." Furthermore, Caspar Bauhin, who wrote in 1596, says 

 that the plant is referred to by Dioscorides, a Greek physician 

 who lived in the first century of our era, as the " sacred herb," 

 that it had leaves like the oak, and that it was used as an amulet 

 and in expiatory exercises ; and Sibthorp, in his " Flora Gracca," 

 identifies Verbena officinalis of our botanists with the herb known 

 to the ancients. The Greeks employed the leaves of the plant 

 to cleanse the table used in the festivities celebrated in honor 

 of Zeus (the Jupiter of the Romans), and for this reason it was 

 looked upon as the great sacred cleansing herb. Some authors 

 have, therefore, conjectured that Verbena might have been 

 derived from ven^o, to brush or to clean. Others, however, are 

 inclined to think that the name must have come from herba, an 

 herb. 



The name appears to have been given to several jikants by 

 the Romans, and the uses they made of these plants were 



