Perennial herb 30 cm - 0.6 m tall
Stem: decumbent to ascending, rooting at lower nodes, hairy to hairless.
Leaves: opposite, 3 - 9 cm long, 1.5 - 4 cm wide, variable, egg-shaped to narrow egg-shaped, deeply and irregularly cut to three-parted, nearly hairless or with appressed hairs.
Inflorescence: a spike, depressed-headlike at flowering, elongate in fruit.
Flowers: subtended by linear, stiff-haired bracts shorter than or equal to the calyx and usually lined with hairs along the margin. The calyx is 10 - 13 mm long with unequal bristle-like lobes and stiff glandular hairs, and the corolla is blue to purple or white, 10 - 15 mm wide, with a tube twice as long as the calyx and lobes notched at the tip.
Fruit: four nutlets, each 3 - 3.5 mm long, with interconnecting veins and shallow depressions.
Similar species: Glandularia species have a five-lobed calyx at least 8 mm in length, a corolla at least 1 cm long, and fruit separating into four nutlets. Glandularia bipinnatifida differs by having a corolla tube one and a half times as long as the calyx and bracts that are usually longer than the calyx. Glandularia peruviana is distinguished by its short triangular calyx lobes and less deeply cut leaves.
Flowering: late May to late September
Habitat and ecology: Introduced from the southern United States, it has escaped from cultivation and is found locally along railroads and in waste ground.
Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native
Etymology: Glandularia means "with small glands." Canadensis means "from Canada."
Author: The Morton Arboretum
This species has been reported from 6 counties. It has long been cultivated and much used for planting on graves in cemeteries whence it doubtless frequently escapes. I have found this species growing on the slope of a creek bank below an old cemetery in which I found it to be common. It has abundantly escaped from cemeteries in Jefferson County and it was found by Chas. M. Ek as an escape from a cemetery in Howard County. I believe it is an escape in Indiana.
Hirsute to glabrate perennial, decumbent or ascending, rooting at the lower nodes, 3-6 dm; lvs strigose or glabrate, variable, ovate or narrower, 3-9 נ1.5-4 cm, incised or incised-pinnatifid to trifid; spikes pedunculate, depressed-capitate at anthesis, elongating in fr; bracts to as long as the cal, linear-attenuate, hirsute, usually ciliate; cal 10-13 mm, glandular-hirsute, with very slender, unequal lobes; cor blue to purple or white, the tube twice as long as the cal, the limb 11-15 mm wide, the lobes emarginate; anther appendages large (occasionally absent); fr constricted along the lines of cleavage, the nutlets 3-3.5 mm, reticulate-scrobiculate; 2n=30. Various habitats, often in disturbed soil; Ill. to Tenn., s. Pa., Va., and Fla., w. to Colo. and Tex., and intr. in Mich. and Minn. Feb.-Oct. (Glandularia c.; G. lambertii; G. drummondii; Verbena drummondii)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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