MINT FAMILY 



LABIATAE 



SELF-HEAL CARPENTERWEED 



Prunella 'vulgaris L. 



This genus name was often written Brunella, especially be- 

 fore Linnaeus' time, as it was said to be derived from the 

 German Brdune, a throat disease for which this plant was 



used as a remedy. 



This perennial is a most 

 widely distributed Mint, some- 

 times known as Heal All. It is 

 common along roadsides and 

 in fields, woods and waste 

 places nearly throughout 

 North America and in Europe 

 and Asia as well. 



The plant is 2-24 inchesi 

 high and very variable. The 

 square stem, usually simple 

 but sometimes considerably 

 branched, is slender, some- 

 times too weak to stand erect 

 and in other cases strictly up- 

 right. The ovate-oblong leaves 

 are petioled, entire or toothed 

 and hairy or smoothish. 



The blooming season is 

 May to October. The small 

 flowers, 3 in a cluster, are sessile in the axils of round bractlike 

 floral leaves, the whole crowded in a short terminal spike or head. 

 These spikes are sessile or short peduncled, very dense, and be- 

 come 2-4 inches long in fruit. The bracts are tipped with a sharp 

 rigid point. The tubular-bell-shaped calyx is deeply 2-lipped, 

 usually purplish, about lo-nerved and closed in fruit. The violet, 

 flesh color or rarely white corolla is deeply 2-lipped also, and the 

 upper lip is entire and arched, whereas the lower is 3-lobed and 

 spreading. The lower lateral lobes are oblong and the middle one 

 is rounded, concave and with small rounded teeth. Two unequal 

 pairs of stamens are under the upper lip. The filaments are 2-cleft 

 at the apex, the lower division bearing the anther. The ovary is 

 deeply 4-parted and the fruit consists of 4 smooth seedlike 

 nutlets. 



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