Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

40. Verbenaceae, the Vervain Family

1. Lippa L. -- Fog-Fruit

1. Lippia lanceolata Michx. -- Northern fog-fruit

Perennial from a branched base, with prostrate to ascending 4-angled stems, usually rooting at the nodes, sometimes forming mats, the stem tips and lateral branches ascending to erect; foliage strigose with malpighiaceous hairs. Leaves opposite, the blades bright green, elliptic to ovate, oblong, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 1.5-7.5 cm long, 0.5-3 cm wide, acute or subacute at the tip, coarsely serrate to below the middle, cuneate at the short-petioled base. Flowers tiny and densely crowded in spikes from the axils, the spikes usually single at the nodes, initially globose, elongating to become short-cylindric, 5-35 mm long, 5-7 mm thick, on slender peduncles 1.5-9 cm long; bractlets ovate to obovate, 2-3 mm long, often rose-pink on the margins. Calyx deeply 2-parted and compressed, membranous, about equaling the corolla tube; corolla pale blue, purplish or white, marcescent and fading, 3-4 mm long, 4-lobed and bilabiate, the lower lip larger than the upper; stamens included or slightly exsert; ovary 2-celled, each cell containing 1 ovule; stigma thickened, oblique or recurved. Fruit included in the calyx, dry, separating into 2 yellowish or olivaceous nutlets 0.9-1.3 mm long. Jun--Sep. Margins of lakes, ponds, streams, ditches and in swales and wet woodlands; e and sc SD, e and c NE; (Ont. to MN and SD, s to FL, TX, NM, CA and n Mex.) Phyla lanceolata (Michx.) Greene.

Lippia lanceolata.

Map key

Return to Family -- Verbenaceae - The Vervain Family
Next Section -- Verbena hastata L. -- Blue vervain

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Page Last Modified: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 11:46:35 EDT
Menlo Park, CA [caww55]