Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Pycnanthemum flexuosum (Walter) BSP.
- Family: Mint (Labiatae)
- Flowering: July-September
- Field Marks: This species is distinguished by the sepals being all the same size and sharp-pointed at the tip, and by the leaves being linear to narrowly lanceolate.
- Habitat: Fields, woods, bogs.
- Habit: Perennial herb from rhizomes.
- Stems: Upright, much branched, smooth to minutely hairy, gray-green, up to 3 feet tall.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, linear to narrowly lanceolate, rounded or pointed at the tip, tapering to the sessile base, gray-green, smooth or minutely hairy, without teeth but with the margins turned under, up to 2 1/2 inches long, up to 1/4 inch wide.
- Flowers: Borne in dense heads, the heads up to 1/3 inch across, on slender stalks up to 3/4 inch long; inner bracts awn-tipped.
- Sepals: 5, united below, green, the lobes all the same size, up to 1/4 inch long, awn-tipped.
- Petals: 5, united below, more or less 2-lipped, white or pinkish, purple-spotted, the tube up to 1/3 inch long.
- Stamens: 4, attached to and exserted from the petals.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, 4-lobed.
- Fruits: Nutlets 4, usually smooth.
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