QQg VERBENACE^. Verhena. 



1. VERBENA, Linn. Vehvaix. 



Calyx tubular or plicately prismatic, 5-tootlied, one tooth often shorter. Corolk 

 salverform ; the tube sometimes curved ; the limb more or less unequally 5-cleft. 

 Stamens 4, included ; the upper pair sometimes sterile. Stigma of two dissimilar 

 lobes, one of them smaller and mostly abortive. Ovary 4-celled, in fruit splitting 

 into 4 one-seeded little nutlets. — Herbs (or a few South American species shrubby); 

 with the flowers in single or panicled spikes or heads, small, or in some showy. 

 The commoner species are apt to hybridize naturally, and the hybrids are not rarely 

 fertile. 



Chiefly an American genus, mainly South American ; the few Californian representatives weeds 

 or weedy, and only two or three truly indigenous. 



§ 1. Flowers small in x>ropor-tion to the spike : anthers [/landless. 



* Stem erect : sjnkes filiform and with the flmvers or fruits at length more or less 

 scattering : bracts icsually shorter than the fruiting calyx. 



-t- Annual, or the base becoming ligneovs and of longer duration : stems a sjMn to 2 

 feet high, slender : some of the leaves pinnatifd, tapering at base, the loiver into a 

 margined petiole. 



1. V. canescens, IlPJv. Hoary-hirsute : leaves oblong-lanceolate and cuneate- 

 obovate, rigid, sliarply incised or pinnatitid : spikes mostly solitary, terminating the 

 branches ; some of the bracts exceeding the flowers : corolla bluish, the limb a line 

 or so in diameter. — Nov. (len. & Sp. ii. 274, t. 136. V. remota, Benth. PL Hartw., 

 from Mexico, is a simple-stemmed form. 



Canon Tantillas, south of San Diego Co., Palmer. Probably extends \\'ithin the State, as it 

 does eastward to Texas and Mexico. 



2. V. officinalis, Linn. Minutely roughish-pubescent, loosely branched : leaves 

 obovate or oblong, or the upper lanceolate, some merely incised, others once or twice 

 pinnatitid or 3 -5-cleft : bracts all shorter than the calyx : corolla purplish or lilac, 

 the limb 2 lines in diameter, sometimes more. 



Dry waste grounds through the western part of the State, prol)ably naturalized, but the species 

 occurs round the worid. A stouter form, and with liniTi of corolhx 3 or more lines in diameter, 

 answering to V. sororia, Don, was sent from San Diego by Dr. Hitchcock. 



+. +. Perennial, 2 to 5 feet high : leaves serrate or merely incised. 



3. V, polystachya, HBK. Scabrous with very short partly hispid pubescence, 

 green, paniculately branclied : leaves from oblong to lanceolate (mostly about 2 

 inches long), sessile by a narrowed base, or the lower short-petioled, coarsely serrate 

 or sparingly incised : spikes loosely panicled or sometimes solitary : corolla purplish 

 or nearly'white, the limb about a line in diameter. — V. polystachya, V. biserrata, & 

 (according to Schauer) V. veroniccjefolia, HBK. 1. c. V. Carolinensis, &c., Dill. Hort. 

 Elth. 407, t. 301. V. Carolina, Linn., but it is a Mexican, not a Carolinian spe- 

 cies. V. Caroliniana, Spreng. ; Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 15G; Schauer in DC. 

 Prodr. xi. 546.' 



Monterey or San Francisco, according to Hooker k Arnott in the Botany of Beechey's A^oyage. 

 Los Angeles, U'aJlace ? 



V. iTRTiciFOiJA, Linn. Green, minutely roughish-pubescent : leaves ovate and ovate-lanceo- 

 late, mostly acute or acuminate, simply or doubly serrate, all but the uppermost with rounded 

 base and a sleniler petiole, the larger 4 or 5 inches long : panicled spikes very slender : corolla 

 mostly white. 



A common weed in the Atlantic States, extending into Mexico, &c. ; very likely to reach Cali- 

 fornia : the specimen sent by Wallace, mentioned under the preceding, is too incomplete to deter- 

 mine whether it belongs to that or the present species. 



