Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Gratiola virginiana L.
- Family: Figwort (Scrophulariaceae)
- Flowering: March-October
- Field Marks: This species is distinguished by its 2 bractlets at the base of the sepals, its flowers on stalks up to 3/4 inch long, and its spherical capsules up to 1/3 inch in diameter.
- Habitat: Wet woods, wet ditches, along streams.
- Habit: Annual or biennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Spreading to ascending, branched or unbranched, usually smooth, up to 1 1/2 feet long.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, lanceolate to elliptic to oblong, pointed or rounded at the tip, tapering to the sessile base, toothed, up to 3 1/2 inches long.
- Flowers: Solitary in the axils of the leaves, subtended by a pair of bractlets, on rather stout stalks up to 3/4 inch long.
- Sepals: 5, green, united into a short tube, 1/6-1/3 inch long.
- Petals: 5, united to form 2 lips, white to pink-tinged and with purple striations, hairy on the inside, up to 3/4 inch long.
- Stamens: 4.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Capsules spherical, up to 1/3 inch in diameter, containing numerous slender seeds.
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