Hedge Nettle Stachys ciliata.
Common Hedge Nettle
Stàchys bullàta
Pink, purple
Spring, summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.
This is common and varies in appearance, being often a coarse-looking weed, but sometimes the flowers are pretty. The rough, hairy stem is about a foot tall, the wrinkled leaves are soft and more or less hairy, and the flowers are about half an inch long, usually pale purplish-pink or purple, streaked and specked with deeper color, but are sometimes bright pink and then the long clusters are quite effective, growing in the road-side hedges. The plant is aromatic when crushed.
There are many kinds of Scutellaria, widely distributed; bitter herbs, some shrubby, with blue or lilac flowers; the calyx with two lips, the upper one with a protuberance on its back; the corolla smooth inside, the upper lip arched, sometimes notched, the lower lip more or less three-lobed; the stamens four, under the lip, all with anthers, the upper pair hairy. The curious helmet-shaped calyx, in which the seeds are generally enclosed at maturity, suggests the common names, Skullcap and Helmet-flower.
Skullcap
Scutellària angustifòlia
Blue
Spring, summer
Cal., Oreg., Wash.
A pleasing plant, from six inches to over a foot tall, not aromatic, with almost smooth leaves, most of them toothless. The flowers are pretty, though not striking, in pairs from the angles of the leaves, with a purplish-blue corolla, nearly an inch long, with a white tube, the lower lip woolly inside. The calyx is curiously shaped and after the flower drops off resembles a tiny green bonnet. When these little calyxes are pinched from the sides they open their mouths and show the seeds inside. This is quite common throughout the Sierras. S. antirrhinoìdes is similar, growing in Utah and the Northwest. S. Califórnica has cream-white flowers, less than an inch long, the lower lip hairy inside, and downy leaves, narrow at base, the lower leaves purplish on the under side and more or less toothed, the upper ones toothless. It grows in open woods in the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada mountains. S. tuberòsa is from three to five inches high, with tuberous rootstocks; the leaves more or less oval, downy, thin in texture, with a few teeth, the lower ones purplish on the under side, with long leaf-stalks, the flowers dark blue, about three-quarters of an inch long, each pair, instead of standing out at opposite sides of the stem, generally turn sociably together, first to one side and then to the other. This blooms in spring and grows in the Coast Ranges of California and Oregon.
Common Hedge Nettle—Stachys bullata.
Skullcap—Scutellaria angustifolia.
Bladder-bush
Salazària Mexicàna
Blue and white
Spring
Southwest