MINT FAMILY 



LABIATAE 



LION'S HEART 



Pliysostegia dentictilata (Ait.) Britton 



The Lion's Heart is a beautiful perennial with flowers nearly 

 I inch long and well worthy of a place in any flower garden. It 

 grows in rather moist soil from Pennsylvania to Illinois and 



south to Florida and 

 Texas, and blooms from 

 June to August. 



The square stem is 

 1-2 feet high, rather 

 slender and unbranched 

 or at least but little 

 branched. The leaves are 

 firm but not thick; the 

 upper are sessile and the 

 lower have slender pe- 

 tioles. The leaves are the 

 chief means of difl^eren- 

 tiating this plant from 

 its close relative the 

 False Dragonhead, page 

 281, for in the latter they 

 are sharply notched and 

 toothed, and in the Lion's Heart only faintly so. They are also 

 greatly reduced in size toward the top of the stem here, but in 

 the False Dragonhead the stem is cons'^icuously leafy to the 

 inflorescence. 



The loosely flowered spike blooms from the base upward, only 

 a few flowers being open at a time. The bracts are lanceolate and 

 little longer than the fruiting pedicels. The oblong-bell-shaped 

 calyx is rather thin, membranous and swollen, and remains open 

 in fruit. It is lo-nerved and equally 5-toothed. The rose pink 

 corolla is much longer than the calyx and the tube is gradually 

 enlarged upward and strongly 2-lipped at the end. The upper lip 

 is concave and entire or nearly so, whereas the lower is 3-lobed 

 and spreading, the middle lobe usually slightly notched at the 

 end. The 4 stamens, in pairs of unequal length, are under the 

 upper lip of the corolla. The ovary is deeply 4-parted and forms 

 in fruit 4 smooth ovoid-3-sided nutlets. 



182 



