Verbena hastata

Verbena hastata
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Verbenaceae
Genus: Verbena
Species: V. hastata
Binomial name
Verbena hastata
L.

Verbena hastata (American vervain,[1] blue vervain or swamp verbena) is a flowering plant in the vervain family, Verbenaceae. It is a herb with opposite, simple leaves which have double-serate margins, borne on stiffly erect, branching square stems. The flowers appear in summer and are purple. This is a common plant that occurs across North America. They are hardy and drought resistant.[2]

This species is a member of the diploid North American vervains which have 14 chromosomes altogether. Hybridization seems to have played some role in its evolution, presumably between some member of a group including the White Vervain (V. urticifolia), V. lasiostachys or V. menthifolia, and V. orcuttiana or a related species. In the recent evolutionary past, there has been an incident of chloroplast transfer of one of the latter or the Swamp Verbena to the mock vervain Glandularia bipinnatifida which is a close relative of the genus Verbena. It is unknown by what mechanism this happened, but it is suspected that hybridization is not responsible.[3]

Footnotes

  1. "BSBI List 2007" (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  2. "Blue Vervain Wildflowers".
  3. Yuan & Olmstead (2008)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Verbena hastata.

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, May 10, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.