VERVAIN FAMILY 



When a road crosses a small running stream, some- 

 where near the bridge or near the fence, where at least 

 now and then its feet may stand in the water, one 

 often finds the Blue Vervain, one's roadside compan- 

 ion from the Atlantic 

 coast to the Mississippi 

 River. The plant is a 

 group of leafy wands, 

 each surmounted by 

 slender, graceful, com- 

 pound spikes of small 

 violet-blue flowers. The 

 impulse of life mounts 

 these stems from base 

 to apex, and the result 

 is that by midsummer 

 each flowering spire 

 bears ripening seeds be- 

 low, a few blue blos- 

 soms midway, and 

 buds in many stages at 

 the top. The outcome 

 is effective, and a group 

 of well-grown plants beside a running stream is at- 

 tractive and beautiful. 



Verbena hastata is not the only Vervain by the 

 wayside. Associated with it, often side by side in 

 the same moist tangle, is the White Vervain, very 

 much the same, only its flowers are smaller and white. 

 The two are frequently joined by a third, an immigrant 

 from Europe Verbena officinalis^ the Vervain of the 

 tradition and folk-lore to which our American plant 

 can lay no claim. In general habit resembles the Blue 

 174 



Blue Vervain. Verbena hastata 



