VERBENACEAE (VERVAIN FAMILY) 345 
slende}, the small, five-lobed, tubular flowers 
sometimes scattered along their length but 
usually grouped in a short circlet with a 
green stretch of buds above and another of 
growing and ripening fruits below. The 
small, brown nutlets usually drop from the 
stalk, calyx and all, without separating. 
They are a frequent impurity in clover and 
grass seeds. 
Means of control the same as for White 
Vervain. 
oo petioles. Spikes numerous, very 
LARGE-BRACTED VERVAIN 
Verbéna bractedsa, Michx. 
Native. Annual or perennial. Propagates 
by seeds. 
Time of bloom: May to July. Fic. 238. — Blue Ver- 
Seed-time: June to August. vain (Verbena hastata). 
Range: Minnesota to British Columbia, xb 
southward to Georgia, Florida, Texas, ; 
and California. 
Habitat: Plains and prairies; grasslands, waste places. 
Stems numerously branched from the base, some prostrate and 
some ascending, very slender, four-sided, rough-hairy, six to 
fifteen inches long. Leaves broadly wedge-shaped in outline but 
pinnatifid, the lobes cut and toothed, the basal pair spreading and 
narrowing abruptly to short, margined petioles. Spikes single, 
the blossoms being scattered somewhat remotely along each spike 
and having the hairy bracts subtending the flowers very long 
and stiff, the lower ones pinnatifid, nearly concealing the small, 
purplish blue corollas. Each plant produces many of the little 
nutlets which foul the soil worse than other species because of 
their earlier maturity. Seed-bearing plants are often transported 
in baled hay, and the weed has of recent years been thus intro- 
duced in a number of widely separated localities in the northeastern 
part of the country. 
Means of control the same as for V. stricta. 
