Hyptis
Hýptis Émoryi
Purple
Spring
Arizona
A shrub, from three to five feet high, with very pale, roundish, woody stems and branches and small, very pale gray leaves, thickish and soft, covered with white woolly down. The little fragrant, bluish-purple flowers, with white woolly calyxes, are crowded in close clusters about an inch long. Only a few flowers are out at one time and they are too small to be pretty, but the effect of the shrub as a whole is rather conspicuous and attractive, on account of its delicate coloring, the lilac of the flower-clusters harmonizing with the gray foliage, which gives out a very strong smell of sage when crushed. This grows among the rocks above the Desert Laboratory at Tucson and in similar places, blooming in early spring and much visited by bees.
Black Sage—Ramona stachyoides.
Hyptis—Emoryi.
Self-heal
Prunélla vulgàris
Purple
Spring, summer, autumn
Across the continent
There are several kinds of Prunella, widely distributed, but this is the only one common in this country and is probably not native. It is abundant in dampish places, in the far West often staying green all winter, a perennial, sometimes hairy, from two inches to over a foot high. The leaves, often obscurely toothed, have leaf-stalks and the small flowers are crowded in a series of whorls, with purplish bracts and forming a spike or head. The calyx is two-lipped, with five teeth and often purplish, and the corolla is purple, pink, or occasionally white, with an arched upper lip, a spreading, three-lobed lower lip, and four stamens, under the upper lip of the corolla, the lower pair longer. This is usually not pretty, but in favorable situations in the West is often handsome, with brighter-colored, larger flowers. The name, often spelled Brunella, is said to be derived from an old German word for an affection of the throat, which this plant was supposed to cure. There is a picture in Mr. Mathews' Field Book.
There are many kinds of Stachys, widely distributed; herbs, often hairy, with a disagreeable smell; the calyx with five, nearly equal teeth; the corolla with a narrow tube, the upper lip erect, the lower lip spreading and three-lobed, the middle lobe longest; the stamens four, in pairs, usually under the upper lip of the corolla.
Hedge Nettle
Stàchys ciliàta
Magenta
Spring, summer
Northwest
This is a handsome plant, with a stout, rough, hairy stem, over two feet tall, and very bright green leaves, which are thin in texture but velvety. The flowers are in whorls, making a large cluster, and have a purplish calyx, smooth or with a few stiff hairs, and a corolla about an inch long, deep pink or magenta, sometimes spotted with white inside. Though the flowers are rather crude in color, they contrast finely with the bright green foliage. S. coccínea is a very handsome kind, with a tubular scarlet corolla, and grows in the mountain canyons of Arizona.
