208 VRKBENACE.E. (VERVAIN FAMILY.) 



ORDER 76. VERBENACE.E. (VERVAIN FAMILY.) 



Herbs or shrubs, with opposite leaves, more or less 1-lipped or irregular 

 corolla, and didynamous stamens, the 2-4-celled fruit dry or drupaceous, 

 usually splitting when ripe into as many \-seeded indehiscent nutlets ; differ- 

 ing from the following order in the ovary not being 4-lobed, the style there- 

 fore terminal, and the plants seldom aromatic or furnishing a volatile oil. 

 Seeds with little or no albumen ; the radicle of the straight embryo point- 

 ing to the base of the fruit. Mostly tropical or nearly so ; represented 

 here only by some Vervains, a Lippia, and a Callicarpa ; to which we may 

 still append Phryma, which has been promoted into an order (of a single 

 species), because its ovary and fruit are 1 -celled and 1 -seeded, and the 

 radicle points to the apex of the fruit. 



1. VEKBENA, L. VERVAIN. 



Calyx tubular, 5-toothcd, one of the teeth often shorter than the others. Co- 

 rolla tubular, often curved, salver-form ; the border somewhat unequally 5-cleft. 

 Stamens included ; the upper pair occasionally without anthers. Style slender : 

 stigma capitate. Fruit splitting into 4 seed-like nutlets. Flowers sessile, in 

 single or often panicled spikes, bracted. (The Lathi name for any sacred herb: 

 derivation obscure.) The species present numerous spontaneous hybrids. 



1 . Anthers not appendaged : erect herbs, with slender spikes. 

 * Leaves undivided : root perennial. 



1. "V. angilStifolia, Michx. Low ( 6' -T 8' high), often simple; leaves 

 narrowly lanceolate, tapering to the base, sessile, roughish, slightly toothed ; 

 spikes few or single ; the purple flowers crowded, larger than in the next. Dry 

 soil, Penn. to Wisconsin and southward. July -Sept. 



2. V. liastata, L. (BLUE VERVAIN.) Tall (4' -6' high); leaves lanceo- 

 late or oblong -lanceolate, taper-pointed, cut-serrate, petioled, the lower often lobed and 

 sometimes halberd-shaped at the base ; spikes linear, erect, densely Jlowered, corymbed 

 or panicled. (V. paniculata, Lam., when the leaves are not lobcd.) Low and 

 waste grounds, common. July -Sept. 



3. V. urticifolia, L. (NETTLE-LEAVED or WHITE VERVAIN.) Rather 

 tall ; leaves oval or oblong -ovate, acute, coarsely serrate, petioled ; spikes very slender, at 

 length much elongated, with the flowers remote, loosely panicled, very small, white. 

 Old fields and road-sides. 



4. V. Stricta, Vent. (Ho ART VERVAIN.) Downy with soft whitish hairs ; 

 stem nearly simple (l-2 high) ; leaves sessile, obovate or oblong, sen-ate; spikes 

 thick and very densely Jlowered, somewhat clustered, hairy. Barrens, Ohio to 

 Wisconsin,, and southward. Aug. Flowers blue, pretty large. 



* * Leaves cleft or pinnatifid, narrowed at the base : root perennial? 



5. V. OFFICIXALIS, L. (COMMON VERVAIN.) Erect, loosely branched 

 (l-3high); leaves pmnatifid or 3-cleft, oblong-lanceolate, sessile, smooth above, 

 the lobes cut and toothed ; spikes p miclcd, very slender ; bracts small, much 



